For Emma Jackson, one of the newest members of Lakeland College's President's Circle, student leadership can be about more than joining student council or leading a club.

For her, it was about being there for her classmates, helping them with their coursework and reassuring them that together, they would succeed at each project, essay and exam.

The 2020 child and youth care alumna from Mannville, Alta., drew on her unconventional Lakeland journey to help her support her classmates.

Inspired by a week spent experiencing Lakeland's electrical program while still in high school, Jackson enrolled in the pre-employment electrical program and graduated in 2015. She loved the experience and working in the industry. When economic conditions made it difficult to find employment, Jackson returned to Lakeland to pursue her other passion - working with children.

“I really enjoyed Lakeland and I knew I was eventually going to come back for the child and youth care program,” she explains. “I loved the environment at Lakeland. I loved the instructors and how they treated me. I met so many new people. Everything about Lakeland is just so wonderful.”

Jackson found the human services program completely different from her experience in trades but one thing remained the same - the relationships she built with her instructors.

“Trades and human services are so different, but the instructors at either end were all amazing and supportive. I still have relationships with them today.”

When Jackson learned she had been chosen to join the President's Circle, her first reaction was confusion.

“I wasn't involved in leadership at Lakeland in a formal way,” she says, but once she read more about the criteria for the President's Circle, it made perfect sense.

“I was surprised to be chosen on one hand, but on the other, it made perfect sense,” she laughs. “I was a mother hen to the other students. It's just something in me - I always help people if I can.

“I'd already been to Lakeland, knew some of the instructors and how to succeed there and it gave me perspective that I was able to share with my classmates. I was able to take a step back and reassure them that it's not that big of a project, not that difficult of an exam. We've got this and we're going to be fine.”

It's that innate need to help others around her that drew Jackson to the child and youth care program, and her experience at Lakeland only reaffirmed that.

“I didn't know that I could be as helpful as I ended up being to those around me,” she says. “Honestly, Lakeland gave me my confidence. Whether it was the instructors or the courses or the environment, everything there just made me more sure of myself.”

Since graduating from Lakeland, Jackson began working with Catholic Social Services in Wainwright and plans to work with children in the future, though the process is currently on hold due to COVID-19.