Theatre artist moves into accounting career with help from Algonquin College Online
Lydia is a long-time theatre artist and Algonquin College Theatre Arts grad who was looking for a career change but to also stay connected with the Arts sector that she loves.
“I worked “backstage,” and always found myself thriving in logistics,” she recalls. “I would make rehearsal schedules, budgets, press releases and all that fun stuff. Through the Arts, I started doing bookkeeping for small theatre companies and found myself liking that a lot.”
Her interest gained even more focus while interning with the theatre organization A Company of Fools (Shakespeare in the Park), where Lydia found a mentor in the company’s General Manager, a retired accountant, who encouraged her to start taking courses related to her newfound financial skills.
Today, Lydia is a Business – Accounting diploma graduate, working for a major accounting firm. In 2022, she won the Victor Tolgesy Award from the Ottawa Arts Council for her impact on the artistic community, helping theatre companies in Ottawa and Kingston develop better financial systems and thus achieve greater sustainability.
“As someone who had a significant shift in careers, Algonquin was an essential step. I would not have been able to make this switch without this education,” she says.
Starting her program during the pandemic, Lydia took self-guided courses full-time initially, then when she returned to work, fit learning part-time into her schedule. Throughout, she appreciated the flexibility. “I’m very thankful for the ‘work at your own pace’ classes because it gave me a lot of flexibility. Especially those first few intro classes, I don’t think I would have done as well in them if it was in a traditional learning scenario,” she says.
Despite learning independently, Lydia never felt alone in her program, finding classmates to study with online. She also felt the support from course facilitators, especially at the start when she was finding her way through online learning after almost 10 years out of school. “Our facilitator Suzanne would always send us resources when we needed more help on a specific chapter and would leave helpful comments on my assignments. Those first few classes were hard because everything is so new, but she was instrumental in my learning and enjoyment of the class.”
Today Lydia is thrilled with her career path and grateful to have chosen Algonquin College a second time. “Algonquin is a great college to begin with—the faculty and student association cares about you. It’s definitely a positive learning environment, and online is no different.”