Co-op Through The Eyes of An International Student

UTSC Eliza Liyun Jiang Chen has the entrepreneurial streak. Only in her third year of university and already delivering professional consulting services for international clients, she has always felt most comfortable taking the reins by herself. Her independent nature is complimented with a flare for testing new grounds and trying new things. Perhaps her level of bravery was passed on from her father, who left a full-time job in Panama to work in the import and export trade as an entrepreneur.

As a child of parents who never had the chance to go to university, Eliza greatly values her current experience in post-secondary school. “Now that I have a university education in business, instead of taking random risks I can take educated risks. The university education itself is not going to make me, but it does help me make educated guesses and take responsible risks.”

Born in Guang Zhou, China, Eliza spent most of her years growing up in Panama. As an international student, Eliza greatly values the Co-op opportunities presented to her. “In my home country of Panama, there is no such thing as working part-time. A lot of people are unemployed, so it’s either you commit to the work full-time or no time at all!” Although Eliza volunteered at various organizations, she was not exposed to the various elements needed for a job search. The notions of a resume and interview process were completely foreign to her, and although being thrown into the demands of Co-op after just arriving in Canada, Eliza greatly values the time and effort she spent on developing her skills. “The guidance of the Co-op coordinators was very useful in the beginning. Now I am much more confident in interviews. Because I am more aware of my own abilities and skills, I [now know how to draw from] my pool of experiences to answer whatever question I get asked.” When speaking of the experience itself, she offers that “it’s real, it’s not simulated. You have to do it and need to do it well because you have to get a job.”

As the first recipient of the Jon S. Dellandrea Award for International Students, Eliza certainly has proved herself with notable contributions to both the academic and social environment on campus. Although Eliza has taken on an expansive range of extra-curricular involvement including being President of the UTSC Model United Nations, she warns against seeking participation for the sake of adding breadth to a resume. “Everything must not revolve around putting it on your resume and including your experiences onto your documents should only be an additional benefit.” Eliza further believes that it is vital students are able to play a larger organizational role rather than only having general membership. In her opinion, the intrinsic values of being in control of a project for one organization greatly outweigh sparse contributions to a dozen initiatives.

It may be easy to say that one should join a variety of activities to learn and sharpen specific capabilities, however students may already feel overwhelmed with coursework and an active job search. Coupled with a part-time job to pay off student loans, one may wonder how to go about finding the time to get involved. Eliza’s simple solution may not be the most comforting, but her frankness projects volumes about her own ability to maintain her work-life balance. “There’s always time for the things we really want to do. It’s just a matter of finding something you really love and once [it’s found], you will budget your time according to the responsibilities you want to take on.” Eliza’s strategy for doing extra-curricular work involves assessing her own ability to commit to the hours involved and whether her other obligations stand in the way of delivering good performance.

It certainly seems like Eliza really wants to do a lot of different things. In the upcoming semester, Eliza will be busy working as a teaching assistant as well as a research assistant for her professors. She plans on continuing her involvement with MUN as a delegate in various conferences and will also assume the responsibilities of being a Residence Advisor on campus.

On top of this, Eliza wants to further her interest in the legal profession and will begin sending applications and entrance essays to a variety of law schools throughout the year.“It seems like…there’s so much on my plate [already], and there is.But I like to keep myself busy because that’s what I think the university experience is all about. You can try anything in these four years [until you face] the real world doing the 9-5.” With such an ambitious mindset, it’s no wonder that Eliza has already dabbled in her own consulting work. The endeavor originally began as a favor for her father’s friend who was looking to purchase and the source out industrial metal and plastic scraps. Canada’s reputation for recycling caused Eliza’s father to immediately think of his daughter as a great contact for the job. The father-daughter duo worked to present a proposal with information on the various pros and cons of different suppliers within the country. Eliza performed research and contact solutions for the business friend and determined the reasons for “why it makes sense to source out material from Canada.”

From her three years with the Co-op program, Eliza has picked up many tricks of the trade that have helped her achieve job search success. When reading job postings, she suggests students always aim to read in between the lines and analyze the specific words used to get “a full understanding of what they are like and what they are looking for.” Citing the example of the word ‘innovate’ as possibly conveying a fast-paced environment that welcomes new ideas, Eliza says to avoid focusing too much on self-explanatory words like ‘organization’ and ‘communication.’ “All companies require you to be organized and to communicate well, it doesn’t tell you much at all!”

Another tool Eliza uses to help prepare for interviews is the T-analysis, a diagram separating the job requirements on one side and personal examples to support each point in the opposite column. She believes that many students make the mistake of being too general when citing examples of accomplishments, whereas employers will greatly appreciate a detailed description of how it was performed and the amount of involvement the student had. Being self-aware has helped Eliza focus on assessing her own achievements to create vivid examples to use when meeting with employers. Finally, Eliza attests to the importance of confidence in interviews but does not grant this a higher status than preparation. “Some students … go into an interview conveying confidence but in actuality they don’t have much to say or much experience to offer, and that’s no good. For me, confidence comes with preparation.”

It’s understandable that not all job roles will have challenging projects and large responsibility. However, initiative is the key trait Eliza subscribes to when trying to build her own palette of skills. “Inquire about what things other people in your team are working on, from the information you gather you can draw a conclusion on an overarching goal and think of ways to help achieve this for the company. Look at the big picture … and identify where there is a gap between the problem and the solution. It may be something that even your supervisor has not thought of.” On top of being proactive, Eliza has also managed to exercise her resourcefulness from having full control over consolidating raw data from a website trends survey into a presentation and readable format for the Ministry of Finance. Although she had learned about Excel in class and in workshops, she realized from experience that “experience is the most valuable tool” and being able to utilize a skill first hand is “different from anything else” that cannot be acquired in school. After visiting the UTSC Library and checking out almost all the Excel how-to manuals, Eliza was able to extensively practice and perform her job well with the spreadsheet program.

In the near future, Eliza hopes to continue pursuing a law degree and possibly get into international corporate law consulting. However, her biggest dream to carry out ventures of her own. Most specifically, she has always wanted to establish a small chain of high-end fashion stores in China carrying stylish and chic European products. The need for venture capital to carry this plan through only further feeds Eliza’s interest in learning about how to go about with “mega-projects.” Explaining her impressive goals while assuming the same vibrant personality as always, she says, “I like to think BIG! And I think students should think big. Of course, I know I have to start small, but I think and dream big because that’s where I want to end up in the future.” With grin that says she is ready for the world, the world had better be prepared for Eliza and the impact she intends on making.