The interview

1. What is your full name?

Kelly Baxter Golding

2. Where are you from?

I was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I now live in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

3. Where did you go to college? For how long? Would you like to go back to school?

I went to the University of Toronto for 4 years, then to Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo for 2 years. I sometimes think I would like to go back, but it's very expensive...I would have to have a plan for a job change before I would choose to pay for another college degree now.

4. What was your major in college and what kind of degree did you earn? Did you attend graduate school for an advanced degree? If  yes, what degree and at which school?

At the University of Toronto, I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and East Asian Studies. I attended graduate school at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, where I earned a Master's in Business Administration.

5. What made you choose your career you are working in now?

After I had my children, I stopped working for about six years. When my youngest child entered Kindergarten, I wanted some sort of job in which I could use my management and administration skills, but still stay connected to my children's education. A job at a school seemed like a good choice.

6. Why did you choose this particular job at this particular company?

There was no Parent Coordinator at Brooklyn School of Inquiry last year, and I helped to fill the job in a volunteer capacity just to help my son's school out. From that volunteer experience, I knew that I would enjoy a full-time job in the position. Last summer they offered it to me.

7. Describe the process in which you got your job. Did you interview? With how many people? How many times?

I started working at BSI as a volunteer in October 2009. In May 2010, principal Donna Taylor asked me if I would consider accepting a full-time position at the school. After discussing things with my husband, I accepted her offer. I then had to go through the formal job application process; I was interviewed by several individual people on three occasions and had a background check to make sure I was a good person to have working in a school. 

8. How long have you worked here?

I've been helping part-time since October 2009, but began full-time work as Parent Coordinator in September 2010.

9. What is your job title?

Parent Coordinator.

10. What do your duties include?

I have a wide variety of responsibilities. Some of these are: I coordinate school bus service for our families, working with the Office of Pupil Transportation. I help parents who have questions or need information about anything to do with the school or the school system. I coordinate the annual open houses we offer for parents of possible new students, and help with the process of registering new students at the school. I design spreadsheets and help with data management. I help to write grant applications, and I proofread documents and make sure that anything that goes out from the school uses proper spelling and grammar and is written in clear English.

11. What are some of the challenges you have faced working here?

There are a number of children at BSI with families who come from cultural backgrounds different from mine. Trying to be sensitive to cultural differences when interacting with these families is a challenge, especially when there is a language barrier -- we have many Russian families and I do not speak or understand Russian.

12. What is the best part of your job?

Helping the students -- when they thank me, I know it's genuine.

13. What is something you would like to change about your job?

Sometimes I wish I had a little office with a door on it, so that if I needed a quiet place to get some thinking work done I could just close the door and be private. 

14. Did you work somewhere else before this job? Where? For how long? How was that job similar or different?

I worked for four years as a management consultant with the company Accenture in Toronto. That job was similar in that a consultant also has a wide variety of responsibilities and has to be flexible. One difference was that there was a lot of travel, and another difference was that I had to wear a suit to work. The corporate environment is quite a lot more formal than the environment in a school. Also, as a consultant I was often working at a client site - in the office of the company who was hiring Accenture to do a project for them. We had to be very careful always to behave in a professional manner, to satisfy the client.  After that, I ran a small business in Toronto for four years, then I had children and stopped working for a while.

15. What do you see as your future with this company? If you plan on changing jobs, what will you do?

My education qualifies me for a higher-level job than this one, but I really enjoy where I am and what I am doing now. If my family ever gets into a position where it's important for me to earn more money to help support them, however, I would probably look at a position in consulting again, or a job as manager to one or more small businesses. I don't plan on changing jobs any time soon, though.

16. Do you enjoy the kind of work you do? Why or why not?

I enjoy most of my work very much.  I think I enjoy it in part because of the variety of things I get a chance to do every day: it never gets boring. Another part of the reason I enjoy my work is that I know it's making my son's school run better, and that means I'm making it a better place for him, and the other children there, to learn. And that's important to me.

17. Do you every plan to open your own business? If so, what kind of business will you open? Where will you open it?

I have already owned a small business in Toronto; it was a company that provided consulting services in the non-profit sector, mainly to small arts organizations. It was successful, but operating your own business requires a lot of administrative work!

18. How has having an intern helped your company or organization?

Having our interns has helped BSI in a number of ways. First, the interns were able to take over a lot of administrative work, which allowed our teachers to do more of what only they can do: educating the children. Also, it was really good for the children to be exposed to older students, and to learn about them a bit; the interns were very good role models for the young students at BSI. 

19. What advice would you give to teenage interns getting ready for college?

Don't narrow your field too quickly! Spend a lot of time thinking about whether the things you study in college are really (a) interesting to you, and/or (b) useful to you in the long run. Don't waste your time in college; the time goes by so fast, and you'll probably never have the same opportunities again to learn about things that are really interesting to you, or useful in your future.

20. What advice would you give to teenage interns preparing to find a career in the real world?

Get to know yourself really, really well. Find out what kinds of work make you happy. Then find a place where they will pay you do to one of the things that make you happy. If possible, look for a job where the end product matters to you; then, whatever your job may be, you will be able to take pride in your work and feel satisfied. Money is important - of course it is. - but enjoying what you do, and feeling satisfaction from your work, are also very, very important.