GSEP: Where Are They Now – Lorraine Godden

• When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?

  I think my earliest career-related thoughts were that I would be a professional horse show-jumper. I seem to remember my parents not being keen given the average cost of a suitable horse! As I moved through secondary school, failing almost all of my subjects, art became my focus of interest, and four years of art college led to my forming my own business, an art shop and gallery. A few years later, changes to personal circumstances resulted in my returning once more to education, this time round as a mature student. In essence, I started all over again, as I needed to complete several pre-requisites to enable me to pursue a business and marketing degree, all undertaken whilst I was sole-parenting two young children. One memorable day, I was helping one of my professors during a lecture and he asked me “have you ever thought about becoming a teacher?” That tap on the shoulder moment led me down the pathway to becoming a qualified teacher.

• How did you become interested in career development?

  Before I moved to Canada I worked in Adult Education in England. As part of the portfolio of courses, colleagues in my team provided adult learners with career-related information, advice and guidance. I saw first-hand how beneficial this was for our learners in helping them connect their learning to their experiences and future career and life plans. When I moved to Canada, I returned to school again, this time to complete my master’s in education at Queen’s focusing on career education in secondary schools. I then completed my doctorate at Queen’s, this time focusing on how career development policy and curriculum is enacted into practice in secondary schools. Understanding how to best support educators to undertake career-related learning through policy and curriculum remains an ongoing commitment in my work.

• What are you doing now that you’re done school?

  I am currently working as an instructor at Carleton University supporting students with meeting their career-related learning outcomes from international placements. I also teach part-time in the masters of adult education program at Yorkville University, and I am a Senior Partner in Ironwood Consulting where I undertake a range of career-related and policy focused research projects. I currently serve on the Board of Directors of both the Asia Pacific Career Development Association, and Experiential and Work-Integrated Learning Ontario (EWO).

• Looking back, how did being a member of GSEP help enhance your current career?

  I found GSEP by chance when I first came to Canada, at a time when I was struggling to re-adjust my professional identity in my new home. GSEP facilitated my attendance at my first-ever Cannexus conference, and my overwhelming feeling of finding my people. I soon joined the Practical and Academic Research Committee as a student member; many years later I co-chaired that committee and joined the Board at CERIC. CERIC has been a consistently inspirational and supportive entity as I have worked to re-establish myself professionally in Canada.

• What is something surprising you’ve learned since getting into the career development field?

  I am still amazed at how so few people understand the crucial role that career development practitioners (including educators) have, and the transformational power of effective career development. This dismays, frustrates and motivates me in equal measure!

Learn more about CERIC’s Graduate Student Engagement Program (GSEP).