professor

educator

faculty

early childhood teacher

it support

Conestoga College

What I Learned:
The importance of ensuring students have the tools and content to thrive and not just go through the motions.
Balancing traditional and modern educational practices to truly connect with students.
Building meaningful relationships across communities, focused on understanding needs and creating space for growth.
Creating an environment where both students and staff feel valued and heard.

Leadership Structure: Open to conversations, but leadership is reluctant to make changes and believes they are doing well with the current approach, without fully recognizing how it impacts students and staff.

Firing at the Top: Leadership tends to fire people at the top rather than addressing systemic issues, which creates a constant churn in leadership and undermines trust.

Disconnect: There’s a significant gap between leadership’s self-perception and the need for change, particularly in how staff and students are treated.

Feedback: Leadership is open to feedback but doesn’t always act on it, especially when it comes to improving the learning environment or how staff are supported and treated.

Workplace Culture:
While there's a strong focus on ensuring students succeed, there could be more attention given to ensuring they have the right environment to truly learn and feel valued.

Balancing Priorities: Managing community work, administrative responsibilities, and personal wellness can be difficult when there’s pressure to maintain status quo practices.

The Most Enjoyable Part of the Job:
Student Engagement - Seeing students truly benefit from content that challenges them and helps them grow as individuals.
Making a Difference in Education - The opportunity to influence how education shapes students' lives, providing them with the tools they need to succeed.
Community Projects - Direct involvement in projects that create lasting, positive change for both students and the broader community.

A typical day at work consisted of reviewing and preparing for daily appointments with newly registered students for the fall programs. There were 2-6 appointments per day which included an initial assement of student needs, a tour of the facility, math and computer tutoring and setting of homework assignments. Student that opted to for ongoing tutoring were rebooked and work assigned and help offered increased with each appointment. Other duties included standing in for reception during lunch and meetings, compiling worksheets and hand outs for students and use for future peer educators in following summer program. As well we collaborated on presentations for basic computer skills classes given by us individually at the end of the work term.
Management were forthcoming with their expecations and encouraging in the goals they set for us as a team. They fostered our new ideas and let us work independently to create new activities and guides for the program.
My co-workers and I worked as a team and helped one another out when necessary during individual tutoring sessions or to collaborate on ideas for the worksheets and presentations. It was a fun and exciting environment.
The hardest part of the job the necessity of meeting students needs and ensuring our knowledge of the skills we were teaching them was relevant and exceeded their expectations as well as our own. It felt like a huge responsibility but the most enjoyable part of the job was the knowledge that we had given the students the inspiration, courage and skills they needed to move confidently into their fall progams. Our feedback survey was a huge success.

The Conestoga SMART Center is an excellent place for individuals who are seeking to gain knowledge and develop new skills. The center offers a wide range of training courses and programs in various fields, such as business, healthcare, and technology. The instructors are knowledgeable and experienced, and the facilities are modern and well-equipped. The learning environment is conducive to learning, with ample resources and support available to students.

However, while the center is excellent for learning, it may not be the most fulfilling place to work. The work can be repetitive, and the center's focus is primarily on providing education rather than on creating a fun and exciting workplace environment. Additionally, there is little room for creativity, as the center's curriculum is pre-designed and must be followed strictly.

Overall, the Conestoga SMART Center is an excellent choice for individuals who want to gain knowledge and skills in their chosen field. The center offers a supportive and conducive learning environment, with knowledgeable instructors and well-equipped facilities. However, it may not be the most fulfilling place to work for those who are looking for a more fun and creative work environment.

Planned and implemented curriculum for preschoolers, toddlers and infant programs
 Supervised children during play and exploration
 Cooked healthy, nutritious meal for the children and staff
Providing children with thought provoking questions and wonder statements, encouraging the children to wonder and explore as well as encouraging them to explain what they are doing. 
I feel that the true reward from working with children is sharing their joy when they have mastered a new skill, learning more from the children then you could ever imagine, allowing yourself to be a kid at heart, and knowing that you are making a difference. I feel that my passion for learning with children is definitely a strength and something I have to offer to ELC. My passion brings out other important qualities within myself that I can offer ELC. My passion is not just for children though, I am passionate about things that I believe in, and put my heart into thing that I do. I feel that with passion come integrity, I stand up for what I believe in and my own personal philosophy. I will not do things that I feel goes against who I am. I know that this might me a weakness in some areas but to me I feel that it is my greatest strength.

Typical Work Day: A typically workday involves troubleshooting computer related issues. (Similar to entry level IT Support).

What I Learned: Furthered my communication skills, learned networking skill sets, computer troubleshooting skill sets, organizational processes and program structures.

Perspective on Leadership: Management was great, however, as with every organization there is always room for improvement. My suggestion would be to develop stronger connections with employees.

Culture: Workplace culture is fantastic, employees and management are respectful and always willing to lend a hand.

Hardest Part of the Job: Dealing with difficult students, inpatient individuals or coming across problems outside of our scope. (Such as hardware failure etc.)

Best Parts of the Job: Helping student's overcome tech barriers, empowering students to increase the digital literacy and assisting faculty with tech concerns.

A typical work day would be log into the system, check for previous day task and complete them first before starting a new day's  activities. I had a considerate manager who was always there to offer advice and assist with any questions i had. The work environment is calm and very friendly as everyone wanted to know how i was finding my new role. The hardest part of the job was having to do make indebt research relating to my job function. The most enjoyable part was when i was acknowledged for the roles i played (paying attention to details and early to all appointments and meetings). More so, working independently on my own at some point made it interesting for me as i also made sound decisions that was agreeable with my boss.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Competitive wage.  Pension. Benefits. Flexibility 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
At times marking can be intense.  More marking than you get paid for when your first start.   Need to put in a few semesters before you feel fully compensated for your marking time.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Culture displays inclusiveness and understanding of life and work balance.  I work within health and life sciences program and the leadership is always open to communication and accommodations as much as possible.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Student face time hours and marking.  As some shifts a 12 hours there is always one full day to catch up on marking

This was a strange place to work. I had a good manager, but there was no effort with team building. On my first day, no one talked to me and I was given no training plan. There was no training really - we kind of just muddled our way through everything.  
The President is just unhinged. He said a lot of stuff that was not true (we aren't going to do layoffs, other colleges are crazy, etc.)
The salary is good, but I would say a lot of people are getting paid too much for the work. When I was hired, I was under the impression that my role would be more complex, but I actually felt like I'd stepped back like ten years in my career. 
I enjoyed the flexibility and benefits, but the business aspect was really odd. I spent my time there wondering how the college had been successful, and just assuming it had been luck based on location, and maybe at some point there was senior leaders who had direction? 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Overreliance on foreign students. Zero opportunities to transition from sessional to full time.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Job security. Instructors cannot know how many classes they will have per semester.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
I rarely see or meet with teaching colleagues. General lack of community for sessonal instructors.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Show up to class. Teach and interact with students. Evaluate what I have to. Try not to be a problem so I can continue to get paid. Feel somewhat exployed with no opportunities for advancement.

- A typical day would be setting up classrooms and offices with computers and switches, with wireless access points in the ceiling.
- I have learned the proper way of setting up a classroom and in what order the parts and equipment need to be applied.
- The management was in somewhat disarray due to conflict between the construction as well as the class room planner.
- Most co-workers worked well together and pushed one another.
- Dealing with management, as the situation changes with the class room, confusion and disorganization affected the work flow.
- The real world experience gained gives an understanding of what to look out for and how to go about a tricky situation.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Professor 4 salaries reported	$113,000 per year
Educator 13 salaries reported	$30.07 per hour
Faculty 3 salaries reported	$93.00 per hour
Early childhood teacher 9 salaries reported	$30.07 per hour
It support 3 salaries reported	$19.33 per hour

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