I Went Back to College at 37 and Found the Work I Was Meant to Do

At 17, I left high school to care for my adopted mother as she was dying. By the time I earned my diploma at 22, I was raising a daughter of my own and trying to imagine a better future for us both. With a toddler at home, I enrolled in a radio broadcasting program—drawn to the energy, creativity and chance to connect with people from all walks of life. When I graduated, however, the media business was in trouble. Jobs were disappearing and the path forward felt uncertain. At 25, I let go of my radio dream and took a gig answering phones for a telecom company, chasing something more stable.

I worked my way up from $18 an hour in customer service to $50,000 a year running a retail location. I loved my team, and I liked the dynamics of retail. I was hitting targets, managing staff, solving problems. No two days were ever the same. On paper, all of this looked like success. But the unpredictability that made it interesting also made it exhausting. There were constant crises: customers in the middle of mental health episodes, people filming us and posting accusations online because we couldn’t meet impossible demands—like delivering 45 iPhones within the hour. Once, a woman stumbled in drunk at opening time and threw up all over the floor. 

More than a decade into the job, I started to feel stuck. I was raising my daughter, who was a teenager at that point, as a single mom. My rent was $2,000 a month. I was still carrying student debt. I was living paycheck to paycheck, and the pressure never let up. Some weeks, I’d be standing in a store full of the latest iPhones, wondering how I was going to pay my own phone bill. And even though I was good at the job, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t moving the needle on anything that mattered or building something tangible. 

Right around then, in the fall of 2018, a friend went back to college. When she talked about it, she was lit up and excited in a way I hadn’t felt in years. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but seeing her so energized seemed like a sign.

Centennial College was the closest college to my home in the northeast area of Toronto, so I started scrolling through their course listings online. I stumbled upon a two-year diploma program in special event planning. Something clicked. The birthday parties I threw for my daughter were never fancy—we didn’t have a lot of money, so I DIYed many of the decorations—but there was always a theme. One year, she dressed up as Hannah Montana for Halloween, which inspired a full-blown Miley-versus-Hannah affair for her next birthday party. The cake had a split image: one side was my daughter as Hannah Montana, the other her everyday self. We had a guitar piñata and games that tied the storyline together. That’s just how my brain works. I couldn’t help but create a whole world around a theme. 

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When I saw the Centennial program listing, I realized that not everyone thinks the way I do. I made a snap decision and applied. Within two months, I started school. Tuition was about $2,000 to $3,000 a semester. I applied for every grant and bursary I could. Centennial offered financial aid, including for first-generation postsecondary students whose parents had never attended college or university in Canada, like me. 

Adding courses into my already busy schedule was a challenge. I built my timetable around a full-time job. At that time, I was managing a team of 10 at the store. I was in charge of planning the shift schedule, and I used that to my advantage. I worked every weekend, taking my two days off on weekdays to take classes. I also stacked my classes early in the morning—sometimes starting at 8 a.m.—then headed to the store from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. On days off from work, I’d load up with back-to-back classes. I squished the two-year full-time program into a year and a half by taking summer courses. I never missed a class. At the time, my daughter was pretty independent, which helped. But to make that schedule work, something had to give. The biggest sacrifice was my social life—no time for friends, no family dinners, no downtime. My physical health also took a hit. I had always been really active and worked out consistently, but there just wasn’t time. I’d tell myself, Just 30 minutes on the treadmill, but I’d be too exhausted. When I did have the energy, I felt the time was better spent finishing an assignment or staying on top of coursework. 

Balancing everything was a grind, but the trade-off felt worth it. I was halfway through my first semester, going into midterms, and realized school didn’t feel like a chore. Even after 10-hour days, I was excited to learn. That was my confirmation: I’d made the right move. One of my favourite class projects was to design an event from concept to execution. We were asked to come up with a pitch, complete with brochures and visual displays. My group went all in. Our concept was called Go Viral—a panel event for students featuring social media influencers, who’d share how they built their platforms and answer questions from aspiring student creators. The pitch ended up getting the highest marks in the class. Our professor was so impressed, she pulled in faculty from other departments to see it. It was the first time in a long time I felt that I was actually good at what I was doing.

It wasn’t all smooth, though. I was completely lost in my recipe-costing course. I’d done math for years in retail, tracking sales and targets, but breaking down the cost of a single ounce of lettuce seemed completely foreign to me. I went to a tutor out of panic. He looked at my work and said, “Why are you here? You get it.” I just didn’t have the confidence to work through the questions. But it eventually clicked, and I got an A in the course.

In the summer of 2020, I was laid off from my job at the retail store because of COVID. I received a decent severance package, which helped cover expenses. Still, it felt like another setback. I assumed my next step would be within the same telecom company: I would keep climbing there and shift departments from retail to corporate events. The layoff changed everything. That fall, I enrolled in a full-time event management graduate certificate program at Centennial. I finished with honours in the spring of 2021. I was on a new path, with two new certifications in hand—right in the middle of a global pandemic that cancelled every event on earth. There were moments when I wondered, Do I have the worst timing in history? But I reminded myself the lockdowns were temporary. Even if things were paused now, they wouldn’t be on hold forever.

Breaking into event planning during the pandemic was nearly impossible. To stay afloat, I took work at the Rogers Centre and Scotiabank Arena as a hostess in their executive suites. Then, in the fall of 2021, I accepted a six-month contract with a nonprofit called Creative Destruction Lab, which supports science- and tech-based startups. It wasn’t a long-term role, but it gave me something on my resume I didn’t have before: event manager. And it paid better than hostessing, where I made minimum wage, plus tips. I was moving forward.

In June of 2022, I landed a full-time job at PwC Canada as a national meetings and events planner, working on events of all sizes: small off-site meetings and team-building activities for six people and holiday parties for 2,400 employees. I was in that job for just over two years before I was promoted to lead the department—managing a team of 10 across the country and managing budgets of over $5 million. 

In that role I created an event called Summer Sizzle. We took over Roundhouse Park in front of the CN Tower and built a full-scale carnival for our staff based in the GTA, with a branded Ferris wheel, marching band, food trucks and fun fair–style games. I worked with engineers to make sure the Ferris wheel was tilted to face the CN Tower, because I knew people would be taking selfies. When I saw the photos online, I thought, I knew they’d want that. Those are the things that bring me joy.

Last Christmas I planned the PwC GTA holiday staff party. Around 2,000 people attend, so we booked Rebel, one of the few downtown Toronto nightclubs that can fit a crowd that size. The concept was Candy Land—like the board game. We rebranded the bars as candy shops, wrapped counters to look like glazed donuts and added photo ops, like a donut swing and cupcake decorating. At 9 p.m., aerial performers descended from the ceiling on hoops, followed by a stage performance and confetti cannons. The evening turned into a full-on dance party. That event won an award at the Canadian Event Awards. 

This past summer, I started a new job at Redstone Agency, a management company for professional associations. I’m leading a team of 10 event planners who, together, create events for more than 20 associations around the world. I’m really excited to work for a smaller organization where I can make a big impact and grow my skills.

Now, at age 42, I’m making around $100,000 a year—double what I was earning before I went back to college. Sometimes I’ll be in a meeting, or in a room with execs, and I feel a wave of emotion. The truth is, this wasn’t supposed to be my life. A girl from Scarborough, given up by her birth mom, a high school dropout with a toddler at 20—none of that pointed here.

When someone’s stuck, my advice is this: blow it up. Start over. You can rewrite your story. I did. And now I get to wake up every day doing something I love. It’s stressful, it’s high stakes, and yes, sometimes I’m brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed when a client calls with 30 changes for an event the next morning. But it’s mine. I get to hire people, choose my own vendors and help open doors for those who haven’t always had access. I get to create memories for people. And I get to show my daughter, who is now 22 and in post-secondary education herself, what it’s like to build a life you’re proud of. If things don’t go as planned, reinvention is always possible.

This story appears in the 2026 edition of the Ultimate Guide to Canadian Colleges. You can buy the issue for $19.99 here or on newsstands.