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Summer job inspires scholarship winner Norman Wells graduate tackles first year of college in a new city
Lyndsay Herman
Northern News Services
Published Friday, September 27, 2013
LLI GOLINE/NORMAN WELLS
Houseboating in British Columbia got all the more exciting for Madison Gray when she received an email stating she'd been awarded a scholarship from the NWT Chamber of Commerce.
Madison Gray of Norman Wells is one of three NWT Chamber of Commerce scholarship recipients for 2013. Gray was given $2,500 for her studies at NAIT in business administration. - photo courtesy of NWT Chamber of Commerce
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"It was pretty exciting," said Gray, who hails from Norman Wells. "I had a really poor signal every day and was barely checking my phone. Then I turned it on one day and saw I had this email from Mike Bradshaw (executive director for the NWT Chamber of Commerce) ... Everybody was jumping up and down."
Gray is just weeks into her first year of a Bachelor of Business Administration degree at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton, Alberta.
Student work in administration during the summer and winter in Norman Wells is what solidified the subject choice, she said.
"I've never really liked being outside and getting dirty, so I wanted more of an indoor job. I had an administrative job this summer and through the winter and I really liked it, so I thought I would get my education in it."
NAIT doesn't require students to choose a major in their first year, but next year Gray will choose what she wants to focus on. Accounting is at the top of her list for now.
"I want to have my own company one day," she explained, adding that math has always been one of her favourite subjects.
"I really like accounting, something like that where you work with numbers."
Gray has lived in Norman Wells since she was six months old, and she graduated from high school in June.
Moving from a town of 838 people to a capital city of over 800,000 has been an adjustment.
"I am a very outgoing person, but when I'm with new groups I'm very shy," she said.
"It was definitely difficult to make friends and talk to people. The bus system, that was very difficult to get used to because we're about a 10 minute drive away from campus. All the people are not quite as friendly as in Norman Wells."
These challenges haven't slowed Gray down. Her advice to other students moving from their home community to a larger centre is to keep their eye on the end goal.
"It's kind of early for me to say, but I would just tell them not to give up. It might seem intimidating over and over again but the end result is going to be worth it."
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