BY HIEDI IRVINE
 How's Business Yukon asked two former students if they feel their high schools prepared them for the outside world.
Sylvio Lin is a 21-year-old who graduated from St. Elias High School in Haines Junction in 2006. He spent half of a year in the Vancouver high school system, maintaining average grades throughout. His interests lie in computers and is now a sales manager for Polarcom. He also works for Peak Fitness.
Reid Parent, a 24-year-old who graduated with honours from F.H. Collins High School in 2004, had taken off time from Grade 10 and all of Grade 11 in 2002.
Parent, and a few of his fellow students, started Blun† Records, where they sold CDs in high school. He currently runs his own landscaping business in Salt Spring Island and is recording an album with his band, Proverbial, thanks to a grant from the Yukon Sound and Film Commission.
Both Lin and Parent have been working in some capacity since they were about 12 years old.
Here is what they had to say:
Q: When did you realize that high school would come to an end at some point and you would have to work full time?
Lin: I didn't really concentrate on school a lot when I was in the last couple of grades. I just did what I needed to do to get finished and then I went straight to work, I didn't think about anything else.
Parent: For me, I couldn't wait to get out of school. For one thing, because I had already tasted the reality. I was just excited to have my adventure and freedom back, as well as I had big plans, I was like, “Oh, I'm going to go here and play a gig there and go here and play a gig there” and turn myself into a product. I may have to sell out at some point, just to “feed the children”, but heck, I won't do it anytime soon.
Q: Do you feel your teachers were helpful with preparing you for life after high school?
Lin: They did prepare you for a lot of the basic things. It was more of the street sense stuff. They can teach you what you need to know and you use that and then you build off of it. Since I was in a smaller school in the last couple of grades, my teachers did help me a lot because there were less kids to work with.
Parent: There were definitely some stars out there who helped me along the way, but largely, if I were to average everything out, I would have to say yes ... hesitantly though.
Q: Do you feel that your high schools had the tools, the proper programs or courses that prepared you for life?
Lin: I suppose so, they had computer lab facilities, gyms for health and fitness and your basic courses: math and social studies, English, sciences. The Yukon especially so because it's extremely well funded, compared to the city. I went to the city and the population of the high school was more than the town I lived in. (Yet) the equipment was half of what we have in the Yukon, they're so downgraded compared to what they have here. So it was kind of a benefit to have a nicer class and working in a nicer environment.
Parent: The hardware is definitely there, if you'll allow me to speak metaphorically, but the software and some of the programming are seriously lacking in some points. I think there's got to be a lot more hands-on experience going around, putting students in the workplace. I did take the MAD program for a number of years and that was extremely beneficial in group dynamics, social skill aspects, things I didn't even realize that I learned until years after having graduated: “Oh, it's just like this one time when my teacher, Mary, said ...” and things like that. But thinking back to when I went to F.H., there was a lot of equipment that we needed and either they didn't know, or there was just lack of direction or determination.
Q: Is there anything you feel high school could have prepared you better for?
Lin: More hands-on experiences, because I noticed when I went to high school, they had these job shadows that you would go on a couple of days a week. I remember, I was interested in dentistry, so I was at a dentist office for about a few days and I was kind of watching the dentist do his job, taking notes about what they do and what's the best part of their job and what's the education you have to get for it. I learned a lot from that. And it was a really good experience because you kind of take that experience and say, “Is that really what I want to do? Or is there something else out there for me?” and it really makes you think about all the options you really have and what really pushes you and motivates you.
Parent: Being decisive as to what you want to do is a large part of success, I think ... I would have liked to have had a one-on-one with a tycoon of sorts in the real business world, just to sit down and talk. You know, “What are some of the most valuable lessons about having an employee or having multiple employees?” I own a little landscaping business on Salt Spring Island and I had no idea what I was getting into when I hired some of my friends to work for me. It's a whole different ballpark – the relationship, the inter-personal relationship, the dynamic totally changes and it would have been nice to have some one-on-ones for preparation in that sense.
Q: If you were to start high school all over again, what would you do differently?
Lin: I would just take the courses that I needed to improve in business. I like computers, technology and business and now I'm getting into personal health and fitness. I wish I could just open those paths and then focus on the other stuff and not even think about it until later, when I needed it, that's what college is there for, right? If you need that course and the prerequisites for it, you'll be more focused and determined to do better in those courses.
Parent: I would definitely take initiative and contact programmers and tell them what I wanted to do in school, see if possibly they could help me out with recording time and studio time. Now I'm a musician, as a business, you know, it's kind of funny ... I definitely would have taken band.
Q: You discuss the advantages to more hands-on experiences, what makes you say that?
Parent: Music Art Drama (MAD) is definitely a different program entirely, they're very focused on developing a sense of self that is almost unbreakable. They put you in situations -- well you put yourself in situations as well -- that are so overwhelming and you have no idea how to deal with them, but you're forced to deal with them and at the end of it, you go, “Oh I should have done that differently” or “OK, I really shone there.” And that kind of thing is the hands-on type and largely the First Nations way of learning. It's invaluable.
Lin: There are situations that are just so stressful, and you're just like, “Wow, I could never experience that in school because the teacher gives you instructions to do a project, or the teacher gives you specific instructions to do a specific assignment. When you're in the real world and you're there doing that hands-on experience, you're trying your best to figure out what to do, how to do it and you're learning it right there while you're in the situation. I learn something new everyday at my job. For the computer world, it's changing every day, everything's changing every day, I have to keep up with it. I'm always reading, I'm surprised I don't wear glasses because I'm reading up on it so much.
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First Nations Business
