How Arts Work Experience Can Change Your Life with Sarah van Kuppeveld

Extending your degree to go on a long work term can be such a daunting decision. Graduating later than your peers, taking a lengthy step-back from the classroom and dedicating your time to working in hopes that it will set you up well for the future may seem risky! As someone who started my degree in my late 20s, choosing to go on a year long work term seemed like a monumental decision. It prompts a lot of questions: will this actually help me get a job? Is it all worth it? Will going back to school when my work term is over be too much of a challenge? When Sarah van Kuppeveld, an Arts Work Experience alumna, reached out to us wanting to talk about her experience with AWE, I knew I had to get her perspective on having the courage to do something different.

Sarah graduated from the University of Alberta in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a minor in French. She originally started in the Faculty of Science, hoping to be a physiotherapist, but felt drawn to her psychology classes and eventually transferred to Arts to finish her degree. Later in her degree she applied to AWE and completed a 12-month work term at Boyle Street Education Centre. According to Sarah, Arts Work Experience sort of happened naturally, and eventually changed her life. Here is what Sarah had to say about her experience in AWE:

What is your current occupation??

I'm a registered psychologist in Alberta. After graduating with a BA in Psychology at the U of A, I went and did my Master's of Counseling at City University. Now I work at a group practice where I supervise counseling students and there's about eight other psychologists there. We do a lot of trauma therapy and eco-therapy, which is fun too. We have rock climbing therapy, nature based therapy, and group and individual sessions.

Tell us a little bit about your time in Arts Work Experience.

I switched to Art Psychology in my third year. I started to meet a lot of people in Psychology, some of them had completed the Arts Work Experience program. I ended up meeting with a few people to hear about their experience and I applied. At the time it felt like a huge decision- do I take an extra year to finish school even though I want to work? Then I heard about how it helped Psychology alumni get a job post-grad too. I ended up applying to AWE and I did my work experience at Boyle Street Education Center. It is an inner city school in downtown Edmonton and my role was to do intakes with students that were coming to school to do Psycho-Ed testing with the assessment psychologist, run animal therapy groups and support the psychologists providing group therapy.

Sometimes people will have an idea of what they want to do for a profession post-grad, but they're still uncertain. Do you think that your time in AWE helped solidify that for you while you were in school?

I think at the time I was still like, okay, I'm going to do psychology. I'll finish my degree, and that'll be that. Being in AWE was like “yes”, this is exactly what I want to do… I think it also helped me see what I didn't want to do in the field of psychology… hearing about other classmates' placements helped me know that I was in the branch or the area of psychology that I wanted to be in or that I would be a good fit for.

I think it taught me a lot about professionalism. When you're a student, you learn the student code of conduct and how to show up in the classroom. Career Education taught me a lot about what it looks like out in the field: How do you show up appropriately to an interview? How do you bring professionalism to places, interactions and meetings that you're doing? I still have my cover letter and my resume from that time.

Do you have any advice for students who might be hesitant to take on a longer work term?

It's worth it in so many ways. I came away from it differently than I entered it. I don't think I would have found success in applying for jobs and the career that I'm in now had I not had that experience. It not only supported my resume, because everything that I did there was so applicable to the jobs I then applied for, but it also was congruent. It was like, oh, look at all these things I've added to my resume, but also look at me show up in an interview and be really professional and have experience to fall back on. When I applied for a job post-grad, they were like, “wow, it's so unusual for an undergrad to have this much experience” and I said “yes, I did this entire year, and here's what I got to do”. AWE allowed me to get a different position than what I had applied for because I had so much more experience. Is it worth it? I know a year feels like a long time to kind of pause your courses and to take that time away from your academics, but it's worth it to get the experience.

I also found my courses so much easier when I came back because everything was related, so I could pull things from my work experience and take them to my classes. AWE actually allowed me to do better in school and to understand things at a deeper level because it gave me good real life exposure to the work. In school, you learn so much about Psychology, specifically about disorders and concerns that clients might bring. It's one thing to learn about that in a textbook, but when you're actually sitting with a human being and listening to their story, it feels like a totally different thing. You're like, “this isn't as clear as I thought it would be”. There's so much life that's happened for a person, and it's not just one diagnosis. It's a person's story, and how do we honor and value all of that? I learned a lot about what that actually looks like out in the real world. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a year, and it was probably the most important year of my undergrad.

Do you think that Arts Work Experience has helped you in any other ways?

One thing I keep coming back to is the connections that it helped me create in the field. In my work experience, I was supervised by a psychologist, and then through that, I was able to meet other psychologists at Boyle Street and then meet other community partners. I think those relationships really helped me once I was done with my undergrad in terms of getting a job in the field and having references and continuing and expanding my career. So the relationships were very important.

Those people kind of follow you around… that's how me and my husband met, which is so funny.

It's hard to imagine where I'd be without it, thinking back. It would have been way more challenging not having that year and those supports and the connections and the resume building and the skills.

In general, do you think that AWE was worth it? Would you suggest people do it?

Yes, I'd suggest people do it. It taught me a lot about myself. I kind of describe that I grew up a lot during my work experience year in terms of just being more grounded and open and understanding of different perspectives… Yes. 100%, yes.

Taking a risk or diverging from the stereotypical path laid out in front of you is always scary, but oftentimes, these moments lead to the greatest rewards. Sarah’s story proves just how valuable pre-graduation work experience is, even if it means taking a step back from school and doing something a little bit different than you originally planned.

I want to thank Sarah for reaching out and sharing her experience and how AWE has helped shape her career path. Want to share your story? Reach out to us through email at artsworkexperience@ualberta.ca, we love hearing from alumni!

This article was written by Hannah Wiley, the 2023-24 Arts Work Experience Communications and Program Support Intern. Hannah is currently in her fourth year of her Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in English and minoring in Women's and Gender Studies. Hannah will be continuing her Communications work in summer 2024 at the Worker's Compensation Board - Alberta and is looking forward to returning to campus as a Career Peer Educator during the 2024-25 school year. She can't wait to graduate in 2025 and hopes to continue her education by pursuing graduate studies in the future.

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