While many people view the beginning of a new year as the time to make resolutions such as losing weight or quitting smoking, many are already working towards goals that will better their lives by learning new skills or completing education.
For 17-year-old Megan Lefebvre, the coming year is an important one. The Grade 12 College Notre Dame student is due to graduate from high school in 2010, and said she hopes to go on to university. “I definitely want to get good grades to get into university,” she said.
“I’m going to go either to Laurentian (University) or McMaster (University) out in Hamilton. I’m going to be either doing radiation therapy or biomed. Eventually I’d like to maybe make it to medical school and become a doctor or something like that. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do since I started high school.”
Lefebvre’s friend, 17-year-old Grade 12 Carrefour Options Plus student J.F. Paquette, also has big plans for the year to come. The teen said he wants to attend community college outside of Sudbury, and take either an industrial plumbing or powerline technician course.
“I want to make money, get a good future, live a happy life,” he said. “I like to work with my hands. That’s why I’m (going to be) taking one of those programs.”
Twenty-four-year-old Sydney Scott said she hopes 2010 will be the year she launches into her new career as a chemical engineering technologist. She just finished the school portion of her program, and is currently looking for a place to do her eight-month co-op.
Even if you aren’t a student, it’s possible to improve your life in the coming year through learning new things, according to the Greater Sudbury Public Library’s co-ordinator of outreach programs and partnerships, Kaija Mailloux.
The library offers many free classes on topics such as healthy living, spiritual well-being, grief recovery, yoga, meditation, dealing with fears and phobias and pain relief, she said.
Beyond classes, the library offers the loan of thousands of books, magazines and DVDs on a variety of different subjects, she said. For more information about library programs, go to www.sudbury.library.on.ca.
