Kee to Success: Student Careers Guide

An-Ni thought she wanted as more traditional STEM Career but she discovered social work and was passionate about helping others, so she went to Ryerson's Social Work program and got a job helping people recover from addictions.  In Part 1 of this 3 part interview, An-Ni explains how she came to social work, what makes Ryerson different, social justice and explains Defund the Police.

In part 2 we learn more about what it's like being a machine learning engineer at Google, plus Rees gives tips to students trying to get into machine learning and succeed in the career.

Rees went into Physics at Waterloo, came out with a degree in Mathematics and ended up as a Machine Learning Engineer at Google.  Learn how he go his job, and what he does in Part 1 of this 2 part interview.

In this final part of my interview with John-Alan Simmons, he discusses success in his own start up and gives tips for students to succeed in computer science.  After the interview he reconnected me with his brother who is a machine learning engineer at Google.  That interview will appear in a couple weeks as our last episode of this season.

John-Alan continues his interview with how dropping out of University of Toronto's Computer Science program affected him.  He gets into his adventures with Bitcoin and Dogecoin mining and discusses his startups leading up to his current company.

I knew John-Alan was an accomplished self taught computer programmer who was also a nationally ranked archer with a lot of talent for doing projects beyond his peers, but I didn't know he was a hacker through high school. John-Alan shares his journey through high school and university in Part 1 of this 3 part series.  Later in the series he'll talk about cryptomining and crytpocurrencies...

UTS grad Baker Jackson explains what it's like at University of Toronto's Computer Science program, why he turned down Waterloo, and how he got his summer internship before finishing his first year of university.  He also explains UofT's PoST system, why it stresses out students and fields many other questions from students.

What do you do if you can't afford university? This question comes up for more people than we'll ever hear about. But for Monsaina, self identifying as poor was really about recognizing the barriers to a university education and employment as she struggled with finances while in school and couldn't afford her tuition deposit.  This podcast is about Monsaina's story from high sc...

Kyle continues his story with what it was like doing an exchange program to Europe and how he got his job at a machine learning start-up through email.  He also gives his final advice to help students who might be in a similar financial situation in university. Our next episode will come in 2 weeks as we pause for Ontario's March break in April!

There is a barrier to education for students that come from a low income family or where they are the first to have university degrees.  My next two guests have persevered to become successful despite these barriers that most people don't realize.  Their messages are here for inspiration to others who might be in a similar situation. My first guest is Kyle who has a Bachelors of Arts in Socio...

Arujala discusses her co-op jobs at McMaster, what her current job is like at Imperial Oil and final advice for those aspiring to be chemical engineers.

Danforth MaST grad Arujala originally wanted to go into aerospace engineering but switched into chemical engineering at McMaster.  She became roommates with my other guest Nelani and went on to work at Imperial Oil as an environmental project manager.  In Part 1 of 2 she talks about high school and life at McMaster in the Chemical Engineering program.  The end of this podcast references a video on...

Not all success has come easy for my grads.  In this episode, my student switched from Chemical to Mechatronics and then hit the challenge of not having work experience before entering university.  Danforth MaST graduate Serena Foo talks about her journey through Waterloo's Mechatronics program, her  advancement through different jobs and where she is now as an Electrical Engineering working...

Nancy did her undergrad at the University of Waterloo in Legal Studies, Arts and Business.  She's currently at the University of Ottawa in her 1st year of law school.  Nancy talks about the shift from high school to university, co-op jobs for non-STEM students at a school known for STEM and the process to getting into law school.

Wasiur gives more insights into his work, then discusses how to be successful in university.  He talks about perks of working at Uber, explains the difference between CompSci, Comp Eng and Software Eng and his final advice for career success.

It took 3 years for Danforth Tech MasT grad Wasiur Rahman to become a Lead Engineer at Uber in San Francisco.  A graduate of Waterloo's software engineering program, he had 7 co-op jobs.  In Part 1 of this 2 part series, Wasiur talks about his co-op jobs, how his career progressed, and the secret to his success.

Danforth Grad Jerry Wu continues his interview as he explains his career path after university to Wall Street and takes questions from students.  He fields questions from last week's guest - self taught investor Erick Gutierrez.

In contrast to our previous guest, this Danforth Tech grad traveled a bumpy road through the University of Waterloo to earn his Masters in Accounting and become a Wall Street Investment Banker.  Part 1 details the entertaining stories of Jerry Wu and how he survived university to land his first job.

This episode is Part 2 of my interview with Erick, the Danforth Tech grad who retired at 22 by learning how to invest in the stock market.  Erick discusses traits of success, long term strategies, the problem with our high school system and what happens when you become a millionaire fast.  Make sure to take notes, because there are a lot of potentially life changing points!

He grew up in inner city Regent Park  with English as his second language.  He didn't like the school system and worked as a line chef after high school but recovering from a concussion for 2 months made him re-evaluate what he always wanted from life.  Erick Gutierrez retired 5 years out of high school after successfully becoming a millionaire in the stock market.  In Part 1 of this intervie...

He started off in carpentry but loved rock climbing, working with his hands, and being outdoors, so Daren Bernier entered the world Wind Tech and became a wind turbine technician and safety trainer who is high in demand.  Learn about what it's like being a wind turbine technician from someone loves their job in this unique interview.

In Part 2 of his interview, Jake talks about how he got into Elite Window Cleaning and worked his way up to become Director of Marketing.  He also answers student questions about Queens and gives tips on how to be a successful business student.

Vincent Song graduated from UTS in 2020 but has developed an advanced degree of skill with networking throughout high school which lead to gaining valuable experience to make him stand out in his application to Stanford.  In this interview Vincent talks about how he got into Stanford, what it's like in first year and how he's using networking skills to make the most of his experience.  T...

Jake thought he wanted to be an engineer until he got into business at Queens with hopes of getting into consulting.  Jake found his way into a company and became their Director of Marketing after graduating in 2018.  In Part 1 of this interview, Jake talks about his experience at Queens including why he chose it, extra-curriculars and the best and worst parts of university.

The last question in every episode is the final advice each guest wishes to share.  Here's a compilation of all 7 guests that were published in 2020 to help inspire you for 2021.