Celebrating our Graduates – Jay-Leigh Hillebrand
Certificate III in Business graduate Jay-Leigh Hillebrand will be speaking at the upcoming Shepparton graduation ceremony.
GOTAFE’s third and final graduation ceremony will be held at the GV Hotel on Wednesday, 22 March.
Amongst the over 160 students who will be receiving their certificates on the evening is Jay-Leigh Hillebrand, who completed a Certificate III in Business.
“I originally wanted to start studying business because I was looking for a career change,” Jay-Leigh said.
“I love people, and I wanted to get into administration so that I could be face-to-face with people every day.”
Previously, Jay-Leigh was working in retail and other industries, but she soon discovered it wasn’t the career path she wanted to take.
“It wasn't ‘people’ enough for me,” she said.
During her studies with GOTAFE, she overcame several challenges and continued to pursue her dream career.
“Some of the subjects were a little bit more challenging than I thought they'd be,” she said.
“I was really lucky that Julie McHenry, my trainer, was very helpful and available at any point, day or night, via phone call, text or email.”
During her studies, Jay-Leigh was living an hour and 20 minutes away from campus with a young, blended family.
“The hardest part of studying and trying to juggle studying work, life, family life was probably trying to find the common ground and balance between,” she said.
Luckily, as well as her Trainer Julie, Jay-Leigh had an amazing support network to help her during study.
“Pretty much everyone around me was super helpful and supportive,” she said.
“I am super excited to graduate because I didn't think I would. I thought that I would struggle and fall behind.”
Looking to her future, Jay-Leigh plans to undertake further studies in bookkeeping and help her family who have recently started their own business.