Alumni Spotlight Series: Taylor DeCoste, 2019
Before the holidays, we sat down with 2019 Semester in Residence alumni Taylor DeCoste. Since graduating from McMaster in 2019, Taylor has taken on a new challenge at Durham College. Read our interview below to hear how CityLAB has helped guide his post-graduate path.
Tell us about your studies at McMaster and how you were involved with CityLAB?
At Mac, my undergraduate degree was a double major BA in sociology and health studies. Through my first three years I was a very uninvolved student. Living off campus at home, roughly an hour bus ride away, definitely made me feel very disconnected from campus life and other students, so I would just keep my head down, do my work and leave. When I saw the opportunity that CityLAB SIR offered, I felt like that was my opportunity to finally get more involved and meet more like-minded people. I was lucky enough to partake in the same project, the Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan (SNAP) throughout the full SIR term, rather than getting put on a new one for the second half of the semester. Our focus was on implementing a SNAP pilot in the North End neighbourhood of Hamilton. The idea of implementing SNAP in any neighbourhood is to create and implement unique climate mitigation and adaptation projects based on specific community needs and priorities. Some examples of these initiatives include adding bioswales, rain gardens or depaving within a neighbourhood. This project enlightened me to the issues we face with climate change, and some relatively simple but effective solutions to battle challenges that arise from it. Working on the project taught valuable skills and valuable lessons about project management. We were afforded the opportunity to build skills in networking, stakeholder mapping, identifying assets and vulnerabilities, creating and executing meeting agendas, creating and executing a preliminary survey, analysis of a preliminary survey, creating and hosting a neighbourhood workshop, among many other things. We also learned how adaptable one must be when working alongside community partners and a municipality’s staff, as priorities and needs are ever changing, and staff’s focus can be demanded elsewhere in an instant.
What are you up to now?
Currently I am attending Durham College in their Sport Business Management Graduate Certificate. I can honestly say if it wasn’t for CityLAB I wouldn’t have pursued further schooling. Nearing the end of the SIR semester everyone in their fourth year were preparing their applications for graduate programs. This was something I had kind of written off for myself as I never thought I would get accepted into anything. I had always been a good student but wouldn’t have considered myself an exceptional one. On top of that, I was so unsure what I really wanted to do career wise post-degree. As a kid the dream was to always work in the sports industry, but the reality of that became apparent as I got older and I learned how competitive and challenging it is to get into.
After talking to and listening to my fellow SIR classmates, I felt much more motivated and confident to pursue anything that crossed my mind. Having the support of so many people in that moment made my current opportunities possible. Aside from the support my classmates gave me, I firmly believe my experiences with SIR are the main reason I got accepted into the Grad certificate, and why I also was accepted for a competitive placement opportunity next semester. Even before applying and being accepted to Durham, I had applied for an internship through the Ontario Internship Program (OIP) and had made it to the final stage of the application process. Almost every question I had to answer or experience I shared came from my time with SIR. Whether it was a direct moment or something I had learned about dialogue, design or project management, SIR consistently gave me a strong foundation to build my ideas off of.
Do you have any long term goals that have been positively impacted by your time in SIR?
As I mentioned earlier, my experiences with SIR are the influencing factor as to where I am right now. Ultimately, I want to be working for a professional sports team, and along the lines of community outreach and initiatives. I always knew from my experiences as a sales associate that I loved interacting, connecting and building relationships with a diverse group of people. My experiences at SIR taught me a bit more about who I was and what I desire.
My role with my SNAP team was to outline all potential stakeholders, organize them based on influences in the community and likelihood to participate, etc. I also was one of the primary contacts for the stakeholders. What I found was, these interactions and relationships that were being built felt so much better than your typical sales interaction because you were building them to make a real change. The work we were doing was going to be used to make an actual difference for an entire community of people. That feeling, of doing meaningful and important work, trumps almost anything. That’s had a profound influence on what I want to do with my future career. If my dream job doesn’t happen, I know I want to get into a career where I can make a difference in other’s lives. Whether that may be working with a community organization to help get underprivileged kids into sports, or working in municipal politics in the city I was raised in and love. These ideas of potential careers wouldn’t have existed or felt attainable to me if it wasn’t for SIR.
Any words of advice for students thinking about applying for SIR?
Just do it. Don’t hesitate or question if you’ll get accepted, or if it’s right for you. SIR has been proven to be a successful program for people of diverse educational, cultural, and social backgrounds. That’s the whole idea of this program, to bring together a wide range of students and create unique ideas through a breadth of knowledge. This program got me out of my shell, and it wound up building what I believe are lifelong friendships and connections. It is an experience that you will not find in any other course at Mac. It’s an experience that will open your eyes to new ideas, perspectives, and opportunities. It’s an experience that I believe will impact and influence you forever.
February 2021 update from Taylor since our interview:
I am now a month and a bit into my placement with Golf Ontario and I can say it has been a fantastic experience. I am helping plan and prep all of their 2021 events and tournaments. This has come in the form of data entry, website design, email communication, juggling of multiple projects, etc. I have definitely used many of the project management skills that CityLAB taught me and enabled me to practice to help balance all of the tasks at hand. This placement is also going to lead to a summer job for me as well, meaning I will be able to follow through on the events I helped plan and execute them. As I mentioned earlier, I want my work to be meaningful. Golf Ontario has a very dedicated strategy to making golf a more diverse and inclusive sport. Having the chance to work for them and play a role in the growth of one of my favourite sports is special. It’s crazy how in just a few months I went from hoping to work in the sports industry and make a difference, to attaining a job and truly play a role in the diversification in the game of golf. I owe a lot to CityLAB, as it taught me so many skills to navigate the crazy work world I am slowly entering, and it also helped ignite where my passions really lie.