Last year, Robin Stone was one of a handful of Camosun Business Co-op students to win the college’s Yvonne Thompson Page Co-op Student of the Year award. This year, she received the recognition again, allowing her to be nominated for the Association for Co-operative Education Provincial College Co-op Student of the Year Award, as well as the national College Co-op Student of the Year Award from Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada. She was awarded both.
Stone says that challenging herself at Camosun was a decision that paid off, and one that she hopes other students can learn from.
“Really, find the boundaries of what scares you and push that,” says Stone. “And try things and do things you wouldn’t normally do, and be okay in figuring out where your actual failure lines are. Most people think their failure lines are much tighter to where they are acting than they are, but they’re much, much further out.”
Stone, who is headed into her second year of the accounting option of the Business Administration program, says that school is a safe place to experiment; she says co-op is an especially good place for that.
“That’s the point; you can go to a co-op and volunteer to do something you’ve never done before, and say, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna give it a shot,’ because they don’t actually expect you necessarily to succeed at it,” she says. “They’re there to support you too. So, you have this perfect opportunity to experiment, this perfect opportunity to challenge yourself and see where you can go.”
Stone also recommends that students put themselves out there, on campus and within the community.
“Get to know people other than your classmates,” she says. “Go out and sign up for some clubs, volunteer, do something you’re interested in that gets your name, your face, and your personality, and everything about you, known to other humans who can be part of your social capital and be part of this network you’re building. That’s going to propel you forward in your career.”
Stone also points out the importance of taking advantage of what Camosun offers.
“The school actually sets up these perfect little nuggets of opportunity throughout the program where you can go and practice skills in a professional setting,” she says. “You can do mock interviews, and networking sessions, and basically speed dating with firms if you’re interested in working with one of them.”
Stone’s outstanding work as a co-op student this past year, as well as her high GPA and community and school involvement, made her a prime candidate for the awards, according to Camosun director of applied learning of co-operative education and career services Nancy Sly. Sly has witnessed not only Stone’s achievements but also her exceptional personal growth; she recalls Stone’s trepidation about speaking at the Yvonne Thompson Page Award ceremony last year.
“She would only come to the awards ceremony if she didn’t have to speak,” says Sly. “She could barely look me in the eye. And in that next year, she went to Toastmasters, she came out of her shell. So, you could see, she just had tremendous growth, and, obviously, support from family and instructors at the college.”
Stone urges Camosun students to take advantage of everything at the college from the get-go instead of waiting until their final semester to unearth the possibilities.
“Go your first year,” she says. “Don’t wait until fourth year when, one, you’ve never practiced how to speak to another human about work and you’re super nervous, and, two, you’re dependent on actually getting a job. Go in just to get them to get to know you, and they say, ‘Hey, let’s go for a coffee.’ You follow up, you go for coffee with these people, and you start to get to know who’s in town.”