Choose to Retrain

The new national #ChooseCollege campaign highlights the importance of Scotland’s colleges and encourage potential students to – Choose College.

Meet Paul Harvey who after 15 years as a chef, decided to change his career and retrain.

"I was a chef for 15 years and I started to realise that I was missing out on spending time with my children, so I decided to change my career.  I initially went into sales but got paid off when we went into the first lockdown last year.  I came to the conclusion that it was going to be a while before I could get into reliable work.  I didn’t want to sit about the house, so I thought ‘how can I get a qualification that can benefit me on my new career instead of being a chef again?’

That's when I saw the Access to HNC Accounting, Administration and Business course on the college website and thought it was ideal as it could give me different avenues into a new career.

The course provides me with the opportunity to choose from three different routes ie, accounting, administration or business.  I left school at age 15 and went straight into the work force and hadn’t really pushed myself in education before. 

I’ve found that one of the real benefits of the course is that you learn about essential skills, things that I hadn’t experience of, for example, computing skills.  Even if I decide not to go on to an HNC, I’ll still be better for it, because when I go for a job in the industry, I’ll still have experience of these skills.

I’ve also discovered I really like the accounting side of things, which I didn’t realise before.    I didn’t think I was going to be good at, but I’m now finding that it’s my strong point. 

This course has shown me 100% that if I’d thought about coming to college when I was younger, I could have got a degree.  Before I started the course it wasn’t something I thought I could ever do.  Now I believe I could.

My advice would be that if you want to change something in your life and you feel that the only way to do that, is to come to college, then I’d say go and do it.  I’m 31 now and have 2 children, but it’s not stopped me from changing my whole life.  Don’t be scared, just do it, no matter how old you are.   

In my career as a chef I travelled all over the UK, Europe and worked in Michelin star restaurants, so I’ve been lucky.  It was scary to make the change, but coming to college has helped me confirm that I made the right choice.

My options are so much wider now.  I am planning to do the HNC Accounting next and then possibly HND, then go from there. 

It came down to the opportunity to change my life for a better work-life balance.  I don’t regret it at all".

#ChooseCollege  #ChoosetoRetrain