Parkland campus welcomed Business Admin student 15 years after high school

Lindsay Sanderson always knew that enrolling in Business Administration 15 years after she graduated from high school would be challenging.

“I knew that I needed to take a course or two to better my skills. But I’d always been afraid to go back to school,” Sanderson recalled.

“I felt I was too old. How would I be seen? How would I fit it in my schedule? On my first day, I remember crying. I was overwhelmed with how far I had gone, just to go back,” she said.

But being a student at Assiniboine Community College’s Parkland campus in Dauphin soon transformed her from being afraid to being a student leader.

Now employed as the program coordinator at the Dauphin Friendship Centre, Sanderson lauded the small size of the Parkland campus, the approachability of the instructors and the camaraderie among the students.

“The smaller college, definitely for me, was easier to go back to. We were a smaller class, so we were able to hit it off quickly and easily. I was also able to make friends with all the other classes, and help them and have them help me,” Sanderson said.

“It was such a welcome, opening, comfortable experience, more than I thought it would be. It’s a second home.”

Sanderson gave birth to her second child, Natalee, just before starting at the college. Her older child, Thorrin, was just five. They are now four and eight.

“It was definitely a struggle. My first set of exams was hard. I was studying after sending everyone to bed. So that first bit of assignments and studying were a shock to the system. I hadn’t done any of that in years,” she said.

But her classmates helped pull her through.

“I wasn’t in school for even two weeks before everyone knew my children and my children’s names and personal things about me. We had our first potluck dinner within the month. We celebrated all our instructors’ birthdays. We had a few potlucks during that first year,” Sanderson said.

In her second year, Sanderson sat on the Parkland campus student council.

“It was a great experience to be on a committee with friends. We all shared the same thing. We all wanted the second year to be great. We wanted to do good things for the college,” she said.

The student council collected more than 600 pounds of food for the local food bank.

The leadership position helped her develop communications skills that she uses in her current position.

“I always took that role of speaking for the group. I enjoyed that. Having fellow-students look up to me was great,” Sanderson said.

“When I get up in front of a crowd, I feel that strength and confidence from when I went to school. I feel that people listen to me. I didn’t feel that way before I went to school.”

Overcoming her own fears has helped Sanderson empathize with the people she works with at the Dauphin Friendship Centre.

“I see a lot of people who don’t believe in themselves. Just to be able to push somebody in the right direction, and maybe relate and share an experience and hope somebody feels a little bit differently from that and pushes themselves,” she said.

Her advice to students considering attending Assiniboine, especially the Parkland campus:

“It can only change your life for the better. It can only increase the knowledge that you have and open more doors and possibilities,” she said.