[Music]
My name is Krishan Ratnavelu. I'm currently in the Human Resources Co-op program
I'm in my fifth semester.
My name is Asma Anika. I'm pursuing my Bachelor of Information Technology. Specializing
in Computers and Communication Networks and I'm currently in my sixth semester.
My name is Aryan and I'm studying Hospitality and Tourism Administration
at Centennial College and currently in my fourth semester.
My name is Tyler O'Selmo. I'm in my final year at Centennial College at the Story Arts Centre.
My name is Teineisha Richards. I'm in the Police Foundations program and I'm in my final semester.
My name is Andy Tung. I'm currently in my fourth semester here at Centennial College
in the Automotive Service Technician program.
My name is Christine Wallace and I'm in the Academic and Career Entrance program.
I just completed chemistry and I'm currently working on tech math.
I was born as a Canadian Citizen and I've lived in Iran since I was two years old.
And by the time I was sixteen I knew that I wanted to study Hospitality.
But as everyone knows, there are no Hospitality schools. There are at least no valid Hospitality schools in Iran.
So I knew I had to use my Canadian citizenship to find my life here.
I've always been a more hands-on person, so I chose the college route and in doing so I
sacrificed my parent's ambitions of me becoming a doctor or lawyer and instead pursuing my own ambitions.
It just felt like I needed more within my life so I decided to go back to school.
And then while looking for a program, I came across Police Foundations.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a police officer or not, but I figured if I do goto a Police Foundations program
I'll learn about the community in which I live, I'll learn about my rights, I'll learn about other people's rights
citizen rights. I'll learn things that I can use day to day regardless if I'm a police officer or not.
There's a lot of stigma around visual minority group and police officers. There's a lot of negative energy that I
grew up around and I kind of wanted to close that gap.
My younger siblings had a few experiences with police officers that weren't the greatest experiences
and me being in this Police Foundations program makes there experiences different. They start seeing
things differently and as well, so do I. I can see from both sides of the spectrum now.
Something that changed my perception on Centennial is when I participated in this recent competition.
It was a student innovation championship among Universities and Colleges in Ontario.
Me and my team presented on behalf of Centennial College and when we won the competition I felt
so proud of myself and I got to know my capabilities and abilities as well as my team members,
and even our professors who guided us in this competition and we were really proud of ourselves
that we were Centennial College students and we won this competition.
In my second year over the summer I was offered the opportunity to go on the flip program.
And so what that was is I went to Denmark with a bunch of my colleagues from my program.
We all met up in Denmark and students from Belgium came and we all put together a program.
It was for Muskoka Beer. And what we did was it was a go-to-market strategy. And over two weeks we learned
how to put together a go-to-market strategy and we learned about the Danish cultural market.
So we know like, will Muskoka Beer work there.
And it's something that I didn't really expect to change my perception of myself, change my perception of
others. It also as well changed my perception of the world.
And it opened up a lot of opportunities. And a lot of perspectives on the world that I didn't have before.
The most engaged I was about learning was actually at the Academic Excellence Office.
I was engaged, but not entirely just because I took a lot of time off from school and I was consistently working
and stuff so education wasn't a time priority for myself, but then when I was surrounded by such scholars all
around right. This is Academic Excellence Office right, so there's a lot of people with all these degrees
and higher education that it really does inspire me and pushes me to go further on.
Initially, I only thought I was going to stop with a diploma and then that's it and now I'm even looking to get my degree.
Maybe a masters.
I'm engaged and most excited about learning right now.
Being in the Academic and Career Entrance program has been a new outlook for me.
I look forward to going to school and learning again and you know, meeting new people and learning with peers
and people who are in similar situations as myself and realizing that I can go back to school.
It doesn't matter how old I am and it's never too late.
The most valuable piece of advice I've ever received was from my Room Operations Teacher, Shirley.
When she, standing in front of the class, told me that I am on the right path and that the only thing
I have to do is keep going and that she sees me as a General Manager in the next five to ten years.
Because it was just so heartwarming. And it was so kind of her that it made me cry of course that night
when I thought about the moment, but then at the same time gave me so much confidence that would keep me going on.
My marketing teacher always said that learning never stops
and even when we finish and we graduate from high school that we should always continue learning
even when we find our careers. Always learn, always, you know, find something new to learn about.
And I've always taken that to heart.
Professor Kenneth Yates, he took me aside and we would have coversations about my future
and schooling and we built a rapport and he did say to me, just very basic, very simple, but it stood with me
that he took the time to say it.
He said, push, push if you want it. Go for it and don't hold back. And that just sticks with me.