What the Job

Gwenna Kadima is a BIPOC Career Activator and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant. Through her consulting business, Gwenna works with BIPOC students and professionals to help them reach their career potential, and with diverse organizations to address systemic workplace barriers. In this episode of WTJ?, we discuss her unexpected career journey, how the pandemic played a role in her startin...

Arden Tse '95 BSc, '99 BCom, '13 MBA Investment Manager, Yaletown Partners discusses the “talent scout” side of investing, his work history that includes working on cruise ships and in a casino, and how to become a great networker. WTJ is sponsored by TD Insurance. Got a question? Email us at: wtj@ualberta.ca What the Job? is a University of Alberta Alumni Association podcast Hosted by: Matt Rea P...

Recorded live at the Arts and Business Student Career Conference, hear three alumni speak to current students about their complex but fulfilling career journeys from entrepreneur to heading a not-for-profit; Working on a cruise ship to investment management. Hear their tips on how to change careers and make the most of your education. Featuring Arden Tse '95 BSc, '99 BCom, '13 MBA Investment Manag...

How do you make a living doing large scale Design? Alixandra Jade’s work is prominent (and lovely to look at) across Edmonton and for international clients such as Lululemon, Amazon, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Rogers Place, Boston Pizza, and Nascad. Jade discusses the importance of business savvy, focus and drive in creative careers. To see more about Alixandra Jade and her work, click here. https://...

Robert Gardner ‘86 Education, ‘00 MEd, retired teacher, discusses how to get the most out of your career as a teacher. Gardner has been involved in curriculum and textbook development and managed to add a lot of variety to his career teaching. This podcast Includes advice about how to avoid politics, burnout and how he managed to get a master’s degree while teaching full time!

This episode was recorded as alive session for the Life After University Conference to demonstrate how professionals from various backgrounds have had non-linear career paths and overcome adversity to find success in their careers. Panelists: Christina Rinaldi, Professor, Faculty of Education (Educational Psychology) Evan Hu, ’87 Eng and Founder, Alto Sante Jessica Vandenberghe, ‘00 Eng, ’03 MEng,...

Reeve Bunn thought he would be a sportscaster -- he even got a degree in radio and TV broadcasting. But throughout his life he'd always had the itch to run a company. So, he left broadcasting and, after making his way through positions in a variety of fields, he eventually became president of a 105 year-old company. After that, he went to university. Learn about how Reeve came to the leadership po...

Hear from Professional Coach and host of A Resilience Project podcast, Cindy Thompson, as she gives concrete tips on building resilience whether you're just graduating, changing careers or just emerging out of post-covid work from home. We also discuss how Cindy came to coaching, the benefits of receiving coaching, her favorite episodes of A Resilience Project's podcasts. This is a special episode...

If you've played Call of Duty: Vanguard chances are you've heard dialogue written by Shelby Carelton, ’19 BA. In this episode, Shelby discusses how she became narrative designer at Sledgehammer Games and what it is like to work in the industry. She also discusses the benefit of taking part in the innovation and interdisciplinary Computer Game Development program at the University of Alberta and ho...

Vince Tedjasaputra, ’17 PhD, always had a knack for translating complex scientific ideas into language that made sense to the common person. After he finished his PhD, he saw a need for that skill in the world of fundraising. So, he wrote his own job description and proposed it to a prospective employer. Now he's the Director of Scientific Communications at the American Lung Association. We talk t...

If you're ever feeling like a fraud at work, you're not alone. It is estimated that nearly 70 per cent of us go through feelings of "imposter syndrome" at work or at school. For this episode, we talk to registered psychologist Rebecca Ponting, '04 MEd. Rebecca currently provides psychological services at the University of Alberta and delivers workshops on imposter syndrome. Listen and learn about...

Hear from BlackCan co-founder about his career in consulting at Deloitte and how he utilizes it to further social justice. Petros served as Students' Union President at the University of Alberta and went on to study at the London School of Economics. he was also a contestant on CBC’s gameshow, Canada’s Smartest Person. The UAlberta Career Centre is a resource for alumni looking for all kinds of ca...

How a human rights lawyer became a Hollywood composer, with Amritha Vaz '97 Arts, '02 Law When Amritha Vaz, got tendonitis at the age of 17, she thought her path in musical performance was at an end. But, after earning her law degree and working as a human rights lawyer, a few chance encounters led her back to music, this time as a composer. Vaz got her start as a composing career assisting Academ...

Sheetal Mehta Walsh is a frequent TEDx speaker and has received awards from Her Majesty the Queen and the UK Prime Minister for her work in social entrepreneurship In this podcast Mehta Walsh speaks about learning and working around the world. After earning her Arts degree at the University of Alberta, it was expected that she would enter Law- instead she studied at London School of Economics, wor...

As a Trinidad-born Black teacher in small town Alberta, Selwyn Jacob, ’70 BEd, turned to filmmaking to tell the stories of Black settlers in the province. Today, the documentary producer continues to explore the experiences of Black Canadians and Canada’s multicultural communities. Hear Selwyn Jacob’s thoughts on being a new Canadian telling local stories, the importance of community as a sounding...

Nisha Patel, ‘15 BCom, is an award-winning Indo-Canadian poet, artist, and public speaker as well as the former Poet Laureate for the City of Edmonton BUT her career almost took her on a very different path. Listen in to find out how Nisha learned to trust her gut and made the life-altering decision to pursue her passion. This episode of WTJ was recorded with a live audience over Zoom as part of t...

Jessica Vandenberghe, ’00 BSc(ChemEng), ’03 MSc, shares her career journey from small town Alberta to the office of the assistant dean of outreach in the U of A’s Faculty of Engineering. Find out how the values of hard work and community taught by her parents, have served Jessica well in a career that has spanned industries. Hear Jessica’s thoughts on developing ‘soft skills’, what an Indigenous a...

Kory Mathewson’s (BSc ‘10, MSc ‘14, PhD ‘19) career path has taken him from the stage to the lab - but it’s not as long a journey as you might expect. We talked to this self-described polymath about what improv and AI have in common, the role of creativity in science, and what, exactly, a research scientist at Google’s DeepMind lab does. WTJ is sponsored by TD Insurance. Got a question? Email us a...

Lack of energy, inability to concentrate, chronic stress: the signs of workplace burnout are real and they are a problem. In this episode, we speak with Michelle Innes, assistant dean of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for the Alberta School of Business, whose research helps us understand what causes burnout, how can it be prevented or treated, and — importantly — what the downstream effects of it...

Isha Datar, ’09 BSc, is the CEO of New Harvest, a donor-funded research institute dedicated to producing food products from cell cultures rather than whole plants or animals. Her advancement of the field of cellular agriculture has even caught the attention of actor Robert Downey, Jr. In this episode, we talk to Isha about the role of lab-grown meat in securing the food supply chain, the importanc...

In our most existential episode to date, we talk to Jacquelyn Cardinal, ‘14 BA, the co-founder of Indigenous consultancy Naheyawin, about her long-term goal of putting herself out of business. Hear about Jacquelyn’s “heart work” helping clients better understand treaty relationships. Sharing the advice she wishes she had been given, Jacquelyn encourages listeners to bet on themselves and not be af...

Jacki Glick, ‘10 BA, teaches us the fine art of cold calling and tells us how her persistence landed her a job as Adam Sandler’s personal assistant. From there, she went on to work on an academy award winning film, and is now a producer on Hollywood hits including, most recently, The Broken Hearts Gallery. We asked Jacki how she leveraged her education to launch a career that could have been writt...

You don’t need an engineering degree to start a brewery…. but it helps! Brett Ireland, ‘04 BSc(Eng), is an engineering grad from the U of A and the CEO of Bearhill Brewing, a company that he and two school friends started about 16 years ago. We talked to Brett about how his education helped him start a brewery with operations in four locations, the skills needed to make it in the restaurant indust...

Evan Hu, ’85 BSc(Eng), ’87 MScEng, is a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” and veteran of the Alberta tech sector. Throughout his career, Hu has founded several successful tech startups, and mentored many more. In this episode, Evan talks about his winding path from engineering to entrepreneurship, including what it was like to switch careers during the ’80s economic downturn and the rapid evol...

Adrien Cho, BScMechE ‘98, MDes ‘04, has been making video games for more than 15 years. He started out as an artist with Bioware, where he worked on games like NeverWinter Nights, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect 1 & 2. Since 2010 he’s worked with Microsoft on the Halo video games. On this episode, he talks about breaking into the video game job market and the understated importance of soft skills. Con...