Below is a summary of my background in a more relatable storytelling perspective to give you a more colourful insight into my journey and some of the influential factors that have led me to where I am today.
I am excited to add to this journey as time passes and hope to meet more individuals with the same passion for analytical thinking in all aspects of life.
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I first became an analytical thinker when my grandfather taught me how to play chess when I was five. We used to play for hours many times per week. He would always tell me – “this is a very important game.” It took me a long time to understand why, but I am very grateful I spent so much time with him as I see this time as fundamental in many of the decisions I make many years later.
When I was 8, I started practicing track and field. I was a talented runner and jumper, competing in short-distance sprinting and long jumping. After winning a few track competitions, I became the regional champion for my age group at ten years old in short-distance sprinting. Looking back, it has become evident that those were my character-building years going through various hardships.
I did not apply myself to reach my academic potential in elementary and high school. Having a competitive nature in all things sports and being bored in school made me think that I did not need to be a good student as I was telling myself that I would be a professional athlete. It was not until grade 11 that I started to feel challenged and interested in academics. I went from being a borderline failing student in grades nine and ten to a C average in grades eleven and twelve. Not very impressive, but my first significant improvement in my academic career.
After finishing high school, I decided that studying aviation operations was the most interesting college program I could find, having looked at every college program. I did once ain increase my efforts in the academic spectrum. I graduated in 2018 with a GPA of 3.2, a B average. One Year before graduating, I started working as an operations coordinator for a ground handler at Toronto Pearson airport. This is where I gained valuable experience managing the entire turnaround process from incoming Air France and KLM flights.
The main challenge for each flight was ensuring that every operational detail went smoothly. This entailed arrival of the aircraft at the gate, offloading, cleaning, lavatory service, bag loading, catering, maintenance checks, flight crew changes, boarding, fueling, on-time door closing and most importantly, safety in every step of the process within restrictive time constraints. The primary skill I appreciate learning here is building good relationships with the many individuals you rely on in the daily quest to achieve the ideal outcomes.
In April 2018, I worked full-time for a regional airline called SkyRegional, operating under air Canada as a crew scheduler. This job entails analyzing short-term operational trends and utilizing problem-solving skills by effectively managing flight crew allocation on all 130 daily flights amid restrictive government regulations and unforeseen challenges to ensure a smooth operation from a flight crew standpoint. As more commonly known by aviation professionals, this job requires you to fill gaps and repair the schedules of potentially hundreds of flight crew members schedules in a constantly changing environment. This position helped me build my problem-solving skills and look for all possible solutions to avoid negative impacts on the company.
In July 2019, I was promoted to operations manager at Skyregional. I was overjoyed and felt like I had reached my main goal when I first decided to pursue the aviation operations degree. Shortly after starting the position, I realized I needed a more significant challenge, as I wanted to use my analytical capabilities at a greater capacity. This was the first time when I thought about pursuing a business degree. Nonetheless, as an operations manager, I was able to build on my previous skills by managing the airline’s resources by working with cross-functional teams through effective communication and strategic prioritization of resource utilization.
After the Coronavirus pandemic ravaged the aviation industry, I was one of the many individuals out of a Job in 2020. I decided this was the ideal time to follow my urge to attain a university degree. I started the Bachelor of Business Administration program at Brock University in September 2020. I fully immersed myself in academics and excelled in many challenging courses such as statistics, calculus, economics and finance.
Over two years later, I maintained outstanding grades throughout my university journey. It is February 2023, and I am in my last semester with a grade point average (GPA) of 3.8 out of 4, an A average. I am happy that I chose the Information Systems concentration as my specialization to complement my BBA degree. This concentration allowed me to learn many technical skills that will aid me in my tech career, such as programming languages, various analytics programs and how many technological software and hardware components work that we interact with daily.
