{"id":23508,"date":"2023-01-25T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T17:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23508"},"modified":"2023-01-26T09:14:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T17:14:18","slug":"camosun-alumnus-creates-award-for-mature-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/01\/25\/camosun-alumnus-creates-award-for-mature-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun alumnus creates award for mature students"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2019, Pauly Singh was feeling apprehensive about making a career change at the age of 41; to do so he would have to return to school. However, after being accepted into Camosun College\u2019s Digital Communications certificate program, Singh\u2019s life was forever changed. He\u2019s now on a mission to help other mature students financially by creating the annual Leap of Faith Entrance Award, for Digital Communications students.<\/p>\n

When he was applying to Camosun, Singh couldn\u2019t find any awards, grants, or bursaries being offered to mature students who wanted to go back to school. While his search for financial assistance was off-putting, he didn\u2019t let that stop him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to apply for student loans and stuff, but there\u2019s nothing available for a mature student like me,\u201d says Singh. \u201cI almost didn\u2019t go through with it. I was feeling somewhat discouraged. But then I\u2019m like, no, let\u2019s just do it. So, I did it and paid for it out of my own pocket. I was scared because I\u2019m like, okay, I\u2019m in a classroom with kids half my age fresh out of school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun College alumnus Pauly Singh has created an award for mature Digital Communications students (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Singh may have been nervous at the start of his program, Camosun Communications chair Lois Fernyhough was a huge support to him during his time at Camosun, which eased his transition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say enough good things about her. Honestly, she\u2019s the reason why I even decided to give back to Camosun because she just shattered every single bad teacher I had in elementary, junior high, and high school,\u201d says Singh. \u201cIf there\u2019s no growth in your community, like if your own personal community doesn\u2019t have, or hold, space for you to grow, then you can\u2019t. Lois did that for me and it was just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fernyhough acknowledges the nerves and self-doubt that can occur within a mature student. She was impressed by Singh\u2019s dedication to his classes and would go on to nominate him for the Kerm Carlson Award of Excellence upon completion of his program. He won the award.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was pretty nervous about getting back to school and I gathered that he had been out of the education system for some time,\u201d says Fernyhough. \u201cSo, this was a big step for him to return. He was a little hesitant about his ability to take on academic courses, but he really, really worked hard at it, to understand the material, and made the most of his time. I could just see this sort of change coming over him; he became confident. He had that leap of faith, I think, and it paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n

After continuing to Royal Roads University and receiving a bachelor\u2019s in Professional Communications, Singh decided to give back to Camosun by selling his woodworking to fund his yearly award. Singh says that he hopes to provide encouragement to mature students who may be on the fence about returning to school.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow many other people are out there in the same boat as me and are scared to go back to school because of past teachers, or they don\u2019t have the financial opportunity, or they just don\u2019t have the right motivation or encouragement? And then I\u2019m sitting there and I\u2019m like, well, I want to say thank you to Lois, thank you to the school, and the program itself to kind of keep that going, because positivity feeds positivity,\u201d says Singh. \u201cI called this The Leap of Faith Award because that\u2019s exactly what I did. I just went into a leap of faith, not knowing what was going to happen. I just did it and came out with flying colours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2019, Pauly Singh was feeling apprehensive about making a career change at the age of 41; to do so he would have to return to school. However, after being accepted into Camosun College\u2019s Digital Communications certificate program, Singh\u2019s life was forever changed. He\u2019s now on a mission to help other mature students financially by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-january-25-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23510,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23508\/revisions\/23510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}