We all like to think we’re in control of our own destinies. We make decisions based on where we think we want to be in the future. We do what we have to do to get what we want. But sometimes life doesn’t cooperate and we find ourselves somewhere we never expected.
A journalist friend of mine had enrolled in the e-publishing for journalists course at Algonquin and was really looking forward to it. It sounded so great I was even thinking about taking it myself! But yesterday she found out that the course has been cancelled after a “strategic review,” and now she’s left hanging, trying to find some other course to take.
The exact same thing happened to me more than thirty years ago, but in my case the repercussions were far greater than they probably will be for my friend…then again, maybe not, you never know.
In June of 1977, as I was about to graduate from high school, I was secure in the knowledge of what I would be doing in the fall…riding the bus to Algonquin’s Woodroofe campus every morning from my parent’s home in the nearby Tanglewood subdivision. Well, at least I thought that’s what I would be doing. As it turned out, I wasn’t. A letter came one day that June from Algonquin informing me that the three-year graphic design programme I’d been accepted into for the fall had been cancelled because of low enrollment…after one of their “strategic reviews.”
As you can imagine, this was a big deal for me. You can’t just pull the rug out from under people like that. It takes time to find a new school, if you can even get accepted into another school and programme you want in time for the beginning of the school year. And there didn’t happen to be another college near Ottawa in those days with the same kind of program. So the only choice I had, other than not going to college, which wasn’t a choice at all, was to move away from home for school.
Luckily, we learned, there was still room in the 3-year graphics programme at Sheridan College in Oakville. Also luckily, because I came from the vocational art programme at the High School of Commerce, I was automatically accepted without having to present a portfolio, as most people would have been expected to do.
So, on a gorgeous early-September morning in 1977, before I’d even turned 18, my parents kissed me good-bye and left me in my tiny room at the Sheridan nurses’ residence on Hwy #10 in Mississauga, where I would live for the next ten months. A five-hour drive from home. I was terrified. I didn’t leave my room for two days, and even then all I did was rush across the street to the convenience store for some food, and right back again.
It took a while, but eventually I made some friends, even got a boyfriend, and became comfortable with my surroundings. You adapt, right? What choice do you have?
Nowadays, every once in a while, I remember that cancelled Algonquin programme and think about the far-reaching changes it created in my life. Moving away from home, meeting people I’d never have met otherwise, including my now-ex husband, graduating from one of the best schools and graphic design programmes in the country. How different would my life be today had The Gonk not made that decision and sent me on such a different path than the one I’d planned to take?
Unexpected changes. We may think of the big ones as being the important ones, but really, every moment of every day changes our future. Every decision, from the most mundane to the most critical, can send our futures spinning into oblivion while a new one forms instantly in its place…and then vanishes as the next future takes hold.
A concept like that may make some people feel uneasy, as if there’s no stability in life, nothing you can rely on. Well…there isn’t. And I don’t say that in a negative way. Indeed, it’s a joyous thing, a wonder and a miracle that every second we rebuild our possible future, both individually and collectively. It’s like swimming in raging rapids, every current and every drop of water constantly changing direction, down a river that, ironically, has only one final destination for us all.
Is that exciting, or what!
But still, Algonquin, you really shouldn’t do that to people. I understand the need to do strategic reviews and make sure you’re on track with your budget and your goals. But peoples’ lives…very young peoples’ lives…are swinging in the balance of your decisions. The least you could do is make your decisions earlier in the year, when there’s still enough time to do a proper search for another suitable school or program. You shouldn’t be allowed to make such changes after January 31 for the coming September school semester. And if you must make these cancellations in June, you should be required to run that program anyway, for at least one more semester, so enrollees will have time to find a suitable place for the following January.
I was lucky. Things worked out really well for me, in spite of your playing with my fate the way you did. But I’m sure the same can’t be said for everyone you’ve screwed out of a college programme this fall.
Image: Navaro Rapids, by Ando Hiroshige, c.1885
1 Comment(s)
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Really great post.
It’s amazing how one or two little things can change everything.