Kenneth Johnson

My name is Kenneth Johnson. I am currently enrolled as a Bachelor of Arts student at Concordia and am moving into the Education program in the fall. Upon completing my Bachelor of Education degree I would like to do high school teaching with a priority in physical education and social studies.

A difficulty that I faced was balance. The balance of schoolwork and all it entails, working two jobs, being in a relationship, and playing under a scholarship for the University as well as clubs. Throughout my first semester in my first year of university, I got hit with all of these things at once and it was my responsibility to find a way to manage it. Given time I was able to develop the skills necessary to put myself in a situation where I could be successful. What worked the best for me was organizing myself. Having a plan of when I was going to do things and removed the procrastination from my life. No longer was I finding myself being overworked, overbooked or overwhelmed because I had took the time to plan things out and create a schedule for myself. I figured out what worked best for me and was able to take control of what was going on around me and turn it into success. This success is reflected in my grades where I sit on the honour roll at the University, I am the Captain of the Concordia men’s soccer team, I have been in a healthy relationship for over two years with my partner, and I have been able to continue to work. What I have learned from being faced with this adversity is that things are easy until they aren’t, and when it reaches that point you need to be able to find a way to get yourself through it.

For any high school students looking to further their education in a university setting the advice that I would give to you is to go into everything with an open mind and the willingness to learn more than that which just applies to you. Take advantage of the programs made available through the school, don’t be afraid to meet new people and don’t feel embarrassed participating in what you like to do. Feel relaxed if you end up choosing post secondary as the choice for you, nothing fundamentally has actually changed. You have been doing ‘school’ your whole life and you know what you are doing, you’ve already made it this far. The final piece of advice that I would like to give is to not stress if you don’t have it all figured out, a degree takes years to complete and there is always time to change plans if you find out that it’s not what you want to do.