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Catriona Kollar

Catriona Kollar

Project Coordinator, Inclusive Early Childhood Service System (IECSS) Project
EducationBA (2010), MSW

Biography:

Reflecting back on my time within the ECE program, I can say that it has had a tremendous impact on my career and the career-related decisions I have made. 

When I first entered the program, I had a narrow view of the field and potential career opportunities. At the time I had the sole goal of becoming an early childhood teacher and certainly was not aware of a career within family support or childhood disability. When I was in my second year I had the opportunity to do a placement at a Holland Bloorview nursery school and that opened my eyes to the different types of programs and supports that exist for children and families. I also started to become interested in what other career possibilities existed within the field. This experience coupled with the variety of courses I was taking in both theory and application of ECE opened the door to further opportunities within my third and fourth year. 

I completed a third-year placement in a hospital alongside a Child Life Specialist and a fourth-year placement within the children and youth programming at Gilda’s Club Greater Toronto. These placement opportunities would not have been possible without the support and guidance of the ECE program and I am ever grateful to have been able to have had these experiences as they allowed me to shadow different roles and helped me to determine my career path. These practical experiences plus the course work I was completing at the time, specifically Inclusion and Consultation and Contemporary Issues in ECE, inspired me to continue my education. 

After graduating from the ECE program with a Bachelor of Arts with distinction I entered a Master of Social Work program where I focused on children and families. I felt uniquely prepared for my graduate degree because of the sound knowledge and skills I had gained from being in the ECE program. Since finishing my graduate degree, I have had many different jobs within the field of ECE from front-line work, to college-level teaching, to now as a project coordinator on a research project. I would definitely say that I could not have imagined when I first started in the ECE program where I would be with my career, though you can see all the connected dots along the way. 

I still take with me the learning and knowledge I gained from the ECE program into my every day and I am excited to see where my career takes me next.