Advancing the vision of international students
150 Mentorship program has introduced multiple interesting topics of career development such as networking, job application, and so on, which give great benefits for job application. To us, as an international student, it really contributes to improving our definitions about building our own career.
Obviously, English, which is not our mother language, becomes an unexpected obstacle in the way of building our career in foreign country.
In the past, English used to be our great advantage in job application because we could communicate with foreigners. When moving to an English-speaking country like Canada, it turns into a real challenge to communicate with other people.
We fear to speak wrongly, unclearly and make other people confused. Consequently, the fear killed our confidence in the first minute of the job application. To be honest, we saw the issue, we know how bad it is, but we didn’t know how to overcome or who could help us.
Do googling? Lots of solutions are proposed but very easy to forget after few days!
Moreover, we intend to avoid social activities and networking events, which can give us valuable opportunities for our career. Our definition of the career is built incorrectly and negatively with some misunderstanding about the new working environment.
The program really understands that difficulty. Instead of providing a lot of articles to read, it gives us many opportunities to meet directly many successful people. Our mentor and guest speakers attempt to support us in finding back the confidence. My mentor told me that “There is no challenge can fail a person, who accepts to abandon all advantages of his mother language to come here”.
Based on the idea of “Open Mind, Open Heart and Open Will,” his guidance really motivates me to be back on the right track and to form my own professional model properly. Additionally, they impart many valuable experiences through sharing their own stories about the career development.
Those stories help us more understanding about the Canadian working environment, the key to success and what I should do to build my career effectively.
The 150 Years Mentorship program really makes a great positive impact on international students. Thank Carol and Stephanie for their efforts in creating the program! Wish the program more successes and achievements in the future.