After graduating from WDSS and starting her own career, Hollie McGee decided to come back home to help others find their own desired career path.
“I have been here for two months now and I am really excited,” said McGee, who is the online learning recruitment officer at Contact North in Wallaceburg.
“It is very different to be in your own community and working at a job like this.”
McGee said Contact North is Ontario’s distance education and training network.
“The network is a really important piece,” she said. “We are partnered with all of the colleges and universities in Ontario and over 250 trading and literacy providers. So we are all about people getting access in rural communities like this, to online education that is out there.”
McGee is originally from Wallaceburg and grew up in the country near Port Lambton. She went to highschool in Wallaceburg and than studied at the University of Guelph for four years. Upon graduation, she worked as a student recruiter, going to the high schools all across Ontario, talking to students, attending academic fairs and helping students figure out what they want to go to school for.
She moved back to the area this past January and completed a human resources post-graduate program at Lambton College, before starting at Contact North.
McGee said they Contact North has 112 centres across Ontario.
“All in rural areas, close to aboriginal communities, Northern communities that don’t have access,” she said. “If someone is thinking about getting their degree, diploma or certificate or maybe they just want to do some job upgrading skills. Even just take an Excel course. They can come to us and we can connect them with everything that is out there.”
McGee said they do the research for prospective clients.
“Anyone from Sarnia to Chatham to Walpole Island, anyone can use our centre to work on their courses,” she said. “Internet, computers and all of that. They can write exams at our centre. Even is someone was just taking an online course and they didn’t want to travel to Kitchener (for example) to write their exam. We can proctor it here.”
McGee said they can streamline the research process for people.
“What might take someone a week to find out information on courses, they can come and we do all of that for them,” she said. “We can present them with study options. So we have people all the way form recent graduates who are out of high school and want to improve some skills to get a job, all the way up to people who are taking Masters level education and they want to do it online.”
McGee said Contact North has 24-hour hotline for people 1-877-999-9149 or more information is available on their website at studyonline.ca.
