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Zina Clyke
Never Too Old
The school is there to help you. The faculty's there to help you. The Writing Centre's there to help you. There's no reason anybody can't succeed if they try hard enough and if they want it badly enough.
Zina Clyke
Zina Clyke knows about waiting. She was 40 when she served up her last order of fries at a canteen in Truro. With her children grown, the single mother was ready for a change.
"I thought I should go back to school because I knew there was something more," says Zina who wanted to follow her passion and work with the elderly.
"I enjoy their stories and their history. They're the people who set the way in the world for you. So they should be taken care of with respect and dignity."
Zina enrolled in the Continuing Care Assistant-Link program 23 years after she'd dropped out of school. This intense 18-month program provides learners with both a high school diploma and a continuing care assistant certificate; a credential that leads to a career with home support agencies and homes for the aged.
"My first day was so scary, I thought, 'If I walk into this class and everybody's younger than me, what will I do?'. And then I just thought to myself, 'Well, there's no turning back', " Zina remembers.
Zina used tutoring services for Math and English throughout the program and turned to the writing centre for help with her essays.
"I never thought I'd have a profession or a career in anything because I had left school. I just always thought I'd be in dead-end jobs," says Zina, who excelled not only in her school work, but in her work placements in local nursing homes.
"The school is there to help you. The faculty's there to help you. The Writing Centre's there to help you. There's no reason anybody can't succeed if they try hard enough and if they want it badly enough."
She says having her children in the audience watching her get her certificate is a memory she'll cherish forever, and a move she wishes she'd been able to make a whole lot sooner.
"I've raised two kids as a single mother on social assistance – we've had to struggle our whole lives. If I'd known NSCC and this support was out there years ago, it would have been a whole different story I think."
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