From social work to sustainable leisure management

After 20 years of working as a social worker, Christin Collishaw decided it was time to explore potential new career paths.

As she searched for different programs, she “kept coming back to the concepts of sustainability and leisure – in particular the natural environment.”

This led to her eventual decision to enrol in the Master of Arts in Sustainable Leisure Management (MA-SLM) program at VIU, which she graduated from this spring with the added honour of taking home the Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal award. The annual award recognizes the student who has achieved the highest academic standing upon graduation from a VIU master’s degree program.

“It’s huge,” she says of the recognition. “This reinforces to me what I try and teach my kids, that ‘we can do hard things.’ This was difficult, but I have a supportive family and a supportive thesis supervisor who worked with my schedule to get me through the post-course work.”

Entering the program in 2020 as a single working parent in her 40s was “intimidating,” but Christin thoroughly enjoyed her experience – despite the fact she began her studies at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I started the program in the fall of 2020, and we were the first cohort – and I believe the only one – that went through the program completely online,” she says.

However, the situation ultimately worked out in her favour.

“Classes were early in the morning to accommodate schedules for everyone – some of my classmates were Zooming in from across the world,” says Christin. “I was also able to continue working and caring for my family while completing the program.”

She says the highlight of her time in the program was travelling to some of the more remote marine areas on northern Vancouver Island and speaking to tour operators in that region as part of her thesis. Her thesis examined marine-protected areas in Desolation Sound and the Broughton Archipelago.

This is also Christin’s second master’s degree.

“I graduated with a master’s in social work in 2005,” she says. “I have had so many more career and life experiences since then, and so I was able to apply these experiences to coursework in the program in a way that I wasn’t able to do in my previous schooling.”

Christin currently works for Island Health as Clinical Coordinator, Mental Health and Substance Use, and intends to keep doing so while keeping her eyes open for further opportunities with the health authority.

She would also love to do a PhD one day.

“It might have to wait until I retire, but it’s on the bucket list,” she says. “This program gave me the confidence to know I could complete one someday if I choose to do so.”