The Local Weekly The heart and soul of our communities with news and information about the Sunshine Coast
Sometimes when you set goals and work hard, your dreams can become reality. In 2000, when Songie Lee was 14 she came from Korea to live in Vancouver. She knew very little English, but was immediately immersed in the Canadian culture. It was hard to learn English and study her other high school subjects, but she did her best.
In grade 12, Songie decided to quit school and become a hairdresser. She thought it would be a fun profession – certainly more fun than finishing school. She attended hairdressing school for 10 ½ months, graduated and started working in salons. Hairdressing was something she was quite good at and for the next seven years she received promotions and worked at more upscale salons. However, she discovered that the fun was wearing thin and she was no longer satisfied with being a hairdresser.
Throughout the years Songie had always had a dream of becoming a nurse, but like many people, she felt she wouldn’t be able to reach her goal. It would be too much work and maybe it wouldn’t be something she’d want to do for the rest of her life. It felt like the process would be too hard and take too long, but it kept niggling at the back of her mind.
In 2012 Songie moved to the Sunshine Coast. After she had been here for only a short time she enrolled at Capilano University in the Adult Basic Education program and started working towards finishing her grade 12 courses. Shortly after that, Songie found out that the university offered the six month Health Care Assistant program. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to take the first step towards becoming a nurse so she started the application process. The next thing she knew, she was accepted and coming to school full-time.
Songie graduated from the Health Care Assistant program in June 2013, having passed all of her courses with top grades. She started work and soon discovered that she’d found her passion. She continues to work towards getting her grade 12 and is very close to completing. She hopes to be done by May of 2014. In the meantime, she is working on her application to the LPN program at Vancouver Community College.
If you too have a dream, but need some assistance getting started, please make an appointment to see Jules Smith the Academic Advisor at 604-885-9310. She would love to help.
