Driving home from my appointment with Mr. B. I was a wreck. I had been accepted to go back to school, no question that I could get in if I could pass their entrance exams, and the time I had considered lost in the machine shops wasn’t such a waste after all. I recognized I had started to move forward. I needed to build on the momentum, but I wasn’t sure that I could. The challenge was money. I stopped by Jim’s place hoping that he could help me see my way forward.

Jim’s outlook was simple, and positive. “You’re a smart guy” he said, “Way to smart to spend the rest of your life in a factory. This is Canada. People here don’t starve. You may have to humble yourself to getting food at a food bank, you may have to work all night to go to school all day, but I know you can do this.”

That was a lot better than my parent's  response  when I told tham I was going back to school. They responded with a comment along the lines of "We'll be impressed if you get it done." For financial assistance they chipped in to pay my parking pass for 2 semesters. Thanks guys.

Jim and I worked out a plan so that I could qualify for retraining. It was a little dicey, but do-able. Since there was about 4 months until school started, and in order to qualify for the benefit to get the government to pay for training you had to have been employed beyond a 3 month probation period, I would have to take a minimum wage job and start living on a student’s budget right away. Then I would have to get laid off (not fired) within 2 weeks of the college start date. If all went to plan, I would qualify just barely in time to go to school. The next day I quit at the temp agency and took a job working retail at under $8 an hour in a business run by a friend.

I worked with him through his summer peak period, then he let me go just in time for me to go to school, and I applied for government money to get through school. This was where the plan crumbled. The government money paid tuition, but not books, and not enough to cover the mortgage on my very cheap house. On the day of our entrance exams I went and talked to Mr. B. again.

He asked why I was so determined to go through school on government money, and advised me to look into a student loan as a single parent. If I could maintain high enough grades, a portion of it would be forgiven, I would win student awards, and I could work on campus to make up any shortfalls. His plan was much better than what Jim and I had stitched together, although it meant I would graduate deep in debt. I decided this was better than not making it at all, and signed up for a student loan.

Standing in the lobby of the entrance exam, it seemed as if everyone in the world was enlisted for either architecture or civil engineering. I worked my way through the crowd looking for other Transportation students, and didn’t find any. I did however meet LW, a girl close to my age who had graduated from University with a history degree, and was now retraining since the history field turned out to be less than she was hoping for. We struck up a conversation, and got along quite well together.

We went into the college gym, and wrote the entrance exam surrounded by some 1200 other students. I went through the questions which started simple and became progressively more difficult, until toward the end of the exam we were working through equations that were quite difficult. For the trig and geometry sections, my machinist’s math came in handy, but for some of the other questions, I was forced to dig deep in my memory for things I hadn’t used in some time.

I left the exam feeling that I had done quite well. LW wasn’t so confident. Her strength was in writing and memorizing facts and dates, she would have to retrain her mind to see things differently. We agreed that if we both passed we’d let each other know and work together through our common classes. We exchanged email addresses, and went our separate ways.

It was an interesting thing that LW was very strong in some areas, while I was very strong in others. She really was a godsend in that by coupling our strengths we were able to cover off most of our first year classes, and each of us was able to learn and present things to each other in a way that empowered each of us. By the end of the first semester, LW had switched her major to transportation, and we were a force to contend with.

On campus I worked in the alumni office, I got to be known among the students, and was recruited as a peer tutor. I ran for student government. Soon I was known to most of the engineering students, and professors and deans would stop me in the hall to chat. In the student government I was considered someone who could handle situations fairly, and I wasn’t afraid to approach a prof and let them know that their class was unhappy. Similarly, profs would approach me to take up issues with their students. By the time I was done at the college I was leading my class academically, had my own office on campus, was part of the program’s academic advisory board, was an executive member of a number of other boards, and had won a number of academic and involvement awards.

When employers came to the college, I was being called on to greet them, and show the campus. Often I was being called into interviews I hadn’t applied to, and profs were personally introducing me to firms that were visiting the campus for various reasons. Things were looking very bright. Through all this LW and I maintained our team approach to learning, and worked with absolute integrity. I was still very afraid of screwing up this opportunity, so that even when students offered previous year’s exams or cheats, we consistently turned them down. Some exams this worked very much to our favour, on some to our detriment, but the college staff came to recognize that we stood for integrity. I took great pride in that.

A funny story, many of the exams in the college were recycled from year to year with a slight change. On our materials lab exam, the previous year’s teas had a question dealing with strength of concrete in relation to the mix used (water, aggregate, cement, cure time). In our exam the quantities and question were all the same but rather than solving for – say cure time, it was asking for the amount of water. Since LW and I hadn’t seen the previous exam, we worked out the question and came up with our answer. Better than half the class though solved for the wrong variable, and came up with the previous year’s answer. The prof couldn’t help but see the pattern.

Since I was doing so much on campus, sitting through so many meetings and making so many presentations, I figured that I should brush up on my public speaking skills. I signed up for a local Toastmasters club, and began working on image and presentation skills. I quickly learned that saying the right thing the right way is a very powerful tool. Soon I was vaulted from participant to chair in a number of committees. I managed to have the curriculum changed with some courses dropped entirely, I was called on to make presentations to liaise with other colleges. Things were quite rosy indeed. One day I was called on to speak with an employer visiting the college from Calgary.

The employer was very interesting. They worked on a different model from most consulting firms, and wanted transportation students to join their firm for short co-op placements. They were interviewing within our class, and I told them I would be interested in meeting with them. 2 positions were available, one in Calgary, and one in a satellite office in B.C. they were only interested in interviewing within our class, and were very limited for availability. I told LW how amazing these folks were, and she also signed up to meet with them. A number of other students in our class also requested interviews.

Of the 12 or so students interviewed, LW and I were chosen to fill the positions. Then they found out about the situation between us. LW had moved in with me, and we were working very closely together. The firm wasn’t willing to break up a relationship. We would have to choose between ourselves who would take the position. They needed an answer by the next day.

LW and I spoke for a long time about it, and it was a tough decision. The firm had said that if we moved out together they would assist the other person in finding a related job. LW offered that she would look for work, and that I should take the position with the firm. The day after Christmas we loaded all that we owned into a minivan and trailer, boarded up the house, and drove from Toronto to Calgary.