Readers Write
The unexpected events that shaped these alumni’s careers
Whether life handed them a challenge or an opportunity, these UBC grads pivoted and persevered.
When life throws a curveball, how do you respond?
We can plot out a career path as best we can, but often life has other plans. Sometimes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity comes your way, and you have to drop everything to take it. Sometimes the path you planned for doesn’t unfold how you imagined, but if you stick with it, it will be even more rewarding than you expected. Sometimes a tragedy (or a blessing) shifts your entire perspective on life. In fact, the way you respond to unexpected events might be what truly shapes your career—as these UBC grads know all too well.
In April, we asked for tales of your most unexpected career detours and “plot twists.” Since we received so many thoughtful responses, we’re publishing a selection of your stories in three parts (check out the first one if you missed it, and stay tuned for the third and final installment in this Readers Write mini-series!).
In this second roundup, meet six UBC alumni whose professional paths were shaped by unforeseen circumstances or unique opportunities. None of their careers turned out how they had imagined, but they ended up in even more interesting places as a result.
From freelance to farming
I wasn't sure where my degree was going to take me when I graduated—I was dabbling in freelance writing and hoping to expand that portfolio—but the last thing I thought would happen is that I would become an organic farmer and food security advocate!
I started growing seedlings in my kitchen window, expanded to SPIN-farming (which stands for “small plot intensive”) in Vancouver, then ended up buying 8½ acres in the Cowichan Valley and dedicating a decade to being an organic farmer. It was the most fulfilling job I ever had—also back-breaking!
Talyn travel writes on a boat while in the Netherlands on a study abroad program from 2005 to 2006.
Talyn in 2012 selling produce from her farm, 8 ½ Acres, at a farmer's market in Duncan.
I believe we always have to be open to new opportunities and follow where our hearts lead us. I'm now doing a master’s program at SFU at 53 years old, so you never know!
The doppelganger
In 1987, I was working as a “historical interpreter” for Parks Canada at Fort Langley National Historic Site after having completed a Master of Education at UBC. My job at the Fort involved wearing a period costume, doing school tours, and talking about the history of the fur trade. I was also the designated blacksmith, having taught myself the basics on the job.
One day while eating lunch at work, I read in the Langley Advance (a local newspaper) that the US TV show MacGyver was moving to Vancouver to shoot its third season. School children on my tours had told me a number of times that I looked like MacGyver (who was played by Richard Dean Anderson). I knew from film production courses I’d taken as electives at UBC that the production company would need a stand-in for the lead character. I phoned the production office and—sure enough—they were just interviewing. Within days, I’d moved from blacksmithing at the Fort to standing in and photo doubling for Anderson. I worked that season and then five more seasons on the series Stargate SG-1, which featured the same actor. My “career” has taken a number of other twists and turns (in 2008 I completed an MLIS degree—again at UBC), but that’s a story for another time.
Bill photo doubles for Richard Dean Anderson in an episode of MacGyver partially shot in the UBC Chemistry Building.
Bill working at Fort Langley.
Between takes on Stargate Atlantis, Bill and Richard Dean Anderson swim in a dive tank. Bill, who has a SCUBA certification, was Anderson's stunt backup in an episode featuring a submerged spaceship.
A different kind of love story
My journey began as a love story—like so many great ones do.
My partner had been accepted to UBC Medicine and I had been eagerly pursuing admission to a physician assistant (PA) program in the States. When I found out that Canada (at that time) rarely employed mid-level providers, I decided to apply to UBC Nursing and let go of the PA dream. For the sake of the relationship, it felt like the path of least resistance. Sigh … love makes you do crazy things.
UBC Nursing surprisingly gave me a seat in their program, for which I am forever grateful. What came as an even greater surprise was the abrupt end of that relationship. Suddenly, I was pursuing a degree I didn’t truly want, in a country that wasn’t my own, for a reason that no longer existed. Suffice to say I struggled mightily throughout the program.
I stuck it out and crossed the finish line, obtaining my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. The transition from student visa to NAFTA work permit took longer than expected, so I worked part time in landscaping with my then-roommate. After nine long months as the only nurse from my cohort who was mowing lawns instead of working as a nurse, my work permit finally came through.
You might be wondering why I didn’t simply drive south and get a nursing job in the States immediately after graduation. I felt a responsibility to give something back to the country that had given me the opportunity to become a nurse. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
St. Paul’s Hospital (bless their hearts!) in downtown Vancouver offered me a nursing position. I spent the first six months overwhelmed, resenting the job and questioning my decision to become a nurse. I regretted passing on the PA program, was still broken-hearted over the girl, and was not, quite frankly, very good at my job.
Around the six-month mark, something began to shift. I grew more confident, stayed ahead of the workload, and even found time to help my colleagues. I got to spend more time with patients and began smiling more often. Six months turned into a year, one year turned into two; I was beginning to truly enjoy my job. I worked largely with a patient demographic struggling with addiction, mental health, and homelessness, and that challenged preconceived notions I had had prior to the job.
As I write this, I’m sitting at my desk inside the walls of the US Embassy in Baghdad. I never thought my nursing career would land me in Iraq. Many of my experiences here have felt surreal. I was able to tour some of the local hospitals, provide medical care to two released hostages, and fly in and out of the Embassy compound in a military helicopter. I am one of three clinical nurses, and we are responsible for treating anyone who walks through our doors.
As you may have seen in the news, tensions in the region remain high. In March, we were hit hard by drone activity, and from a medical standpoint, we had to prepare for a potential mass casualty event. Everything we had trained for suddenly felt very real. I’ve been in this role for over a year and a half, and it’s been an eye-opening experience, one that inspires me to remain diligent and ready for anything.
The medical team at US Embassy Baghdad in 2026, around a year after Joel (on the far right in the back row) arrived in Iraq.
Joel at Department of State headquarters in Washington DC during his first week of training.
This spring marked my tenth year working as a nurse. I’ve had some incredible experiences, both paid and volunteer. I have provided nursing care in North, Central, and South America, Africa, and the Middle East. My journey may have begun as a love story—but today, it’s a story I’ve grown to love in ways I never expected.
EXPANDING POSSIBILITIES
I’m originally from Southern Ontario, born in London in 1992. I’m a member of the Oneida Nation of the Thames but grew up in a small town called Fort Erie bordering the US. Having lived in Vancouver for 10 years, I’ve managed to achieve milestones I never imagined when I was in high school.
I landed in my career unexpectedly nearly three years ago when I saw an ad online for the position of Indigenous Outreach Coordinator at UBC Geering Up, a non-profit organization that focuses on youth outreach in STEM subjects. Our programs engage K-12 students in school-related activities to help them succeed academically. From what I've heard, it works! People seem to really love what Geering Up is doing in the Lower Mainland and across BC in rural Indigenous communities.
Looking back, I never really pursued a job like the one I have now. I sort of landed in it by way of my trials and tribulations with other employers and my own life experiences and interests. Before joining Geering Up, I helped start a non-profit organization called Nations Skate Youth where we traveled to reservations around Canada hosting skateboarding workshops for Indigenous youth to let them know they can achieve great things through their own self-determination. Having that experience, I brought the same passion for lifting up others to my work now.
Recently, I joined alumni UBC’s Online Book Club where I read Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. His reflections on character, ambition, and the role of chance in our careers really spoke to me, particularly his observation that we each have “a character of [our] own choosing.” With my career having taken an unexpected turn, I’m striving to put ego and ambition aside and directing my energy toward helping others.
This job allows me to support those who are in the early days of career exploration. As a young person, I’d never been taught that careers in STEM were possible and could lead to a successful life, so it is good to know that I am working for the benefit of others’ futures instead of the direct benefit of my own. By helping others, I am also helping myself.
This summer, Adam and two Geering Up instructors camped in Tsal'alh for four nights and put on fun, land-based STEM activities for the local youth.
A camper uses gathered natural materials to measure the biodiversity of plant species.
Being so far away from my hometown, it’s difficult to feel connected to my own Nation’s specific culture but working at Geering Up allows me to participate in Indigenous cultures and make a positive impact for the youth in Indigenous communities.
PERSPECTIVE SHIFT
After completing my PhD in Experimental Medicine at UBC, I stepped into biotechnology, working at STEMCELL Technologies. I assumed that my career would continue along a fairly recognizable track: laboratory research, innovation, product development, and the world of science as it is typically imagined. I had spent years training to observe closely, think analytically, and work at the cellular level. I loved the precision of it. I loved the discipline. I loved the feeling that scientific work could contribute to something larger than myself.
For a long time, that felt like the path.
But life has a way of asking different questions than the ones we prepare for professionally. My career did not change all at once. It shifted gradually, then deeply. Looking back, the turn was not simply from one job to another. It was a change in how I understood science, education, and my own purpose.
That shift began when I became a mother.
Motherhood changed the scale at which I thought about the world. In research, I had been trained to focus on mechanisms, systems, and highly specialized problems. As a parent, I found myself thinking more about belonging, identity, access, and the kind of future we are creating for children. I started asking different questions. What is science for? Who gets to feel that they belong in it?
Those questions stayed with me. They grew into a larger realization that what mattered to me was not only producing scientific knowledge, but also helping people build meaningful relationships with science. I began to see that science was not just a body of facts or a career pathway. It was also a human and cultural practice. It was about curiosity, care, interpretation, and connection. That realization changed everything.
Eventually, it led me back to school for a second PhD, this time in education at Simon Fraser University.
Pursuing a second doctorate was humbling. It meant entering a new discipline and learning a new language of scholarship. It meant holding my earlier scientific training alongside educational theory, community-based research, and questions of pedagogy, ethics, and belonging. It also meant learning to live more fully in the space between disciplines. Over time, what once looked like two separate paths, one in science and one in education, became one integrated way of seeing the world.
That integration now defines the work I do.
Today, I work at the intersection of science, education, community, and culture. I teach at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where I have the opportunity to work with students who may not have imagined themselves in science, but whose extraordinary creativity and insight offer new ways of engaging with the natural world. I serve as a Research Associate at the Institute for Environmental Learning at Simon Fraser University, where my work is grounded in questions of community, pedagogy, and the possibilities of relational science education.
I am also Senior Education and Research Advisor at the Vancouver Botanical Gardens Association, where I help think through how botanical and environmental learning can invite deeper connections between people, place, and plant life. In addition, I work with Science World as a community collaborator, contributing to projects that support public science engagement and science learning beyond traditional classroom spaces. Alongside all of this, I am the Founder and CEO of STEMedge Inc. and work closely with Elders and knowledge holders to build educational initiatives that connect science with equity, outreach, and community relevance.
What ties these roles together is a commitment to making science feel more human.
My work today is about helping people feel that science is something they can enter, question, shape, and connect with. Sometimes that means working with university students who are discovering that science can speak to art, design, storytelling, and ethics. Sometimes it means supporting botanical and environmental education that encourages stewardship and relationship rather than distance and abstraction. Sometimes it means collaborating with community partners to create learning experiences that are publicly engaged, culturally responsive, and grounded in place.
Poh working in the lab in 2007 during her first doctorate. Photo by Paulus Mau.
Some of Poh's most recent science outreach work can be seen outside Science World on the Environmental Trail. Photo courtesy of Poh Tan.
I think many of us are taught to imagine success as linear: choose a field, specialize, and move upward in a recognizable way. There is nothing wrong with that path, but it is not the only path. My career has included research, biotechnology, entrepreneurship, teaching, scholarly writing, public engagement, and community collaboration. Those turns may have looked disconnected from the outside, but from where I stand now, they were all part of becoming the person I needed to become.
Sometimes what looks like a detour is actually a deepening, and the path that makes the least sense on paper becomes the one that feels most honest when you are living it. My journey of twists and turns has led me to discover where I truly fit, how my values and my voice connect, and how I might best contribute through my work.
THERE IS NO “RIGHT” TIME
When I graduated from UBC with a Bachelor of Music in Opera Performance, I expected my career to follow a fairly traditional path in opera.
Instead, a turning point came during my final year at UBC.
My father attended a performance of my first major operatic role. It was the culmination of years of training and one of the proudest moments of my undergraduate experience. Three days later, he passed away.
That experience changed the way I thought about time, ambition, and the things we convince ourselves can wait until later.
Before then, I had always been drawn to both opera and contemporary music. While studying at UBC, I wrote songs, but I viewed them as separate from the career I imagined for myself. After losing my father, I found it harder to justify postponing the creative goals I cared about most.
In the years that followed, I began releasing original music, travelling to Los Angeles to write and collaborate, and developing my career as an independent artist. At the same time, I built a life that was far more varied than I ever expected: teaching voice lessons, conducting a church choir, mentoring singers, and working behind the scenes in the music industry.
What I learned is that careers rarely unfold according to plan. The opportunities that shaped me most were not the ones I could have predicted when I crossed the graduation stage.
Today, I continue to perform, write, teach, and work in music while remaining open to wherever the next chapter may lead. The path has been far less linear than I imagined, but far richer because of it.
Looking back, the last time my father saw me perform remains one of the most meaningful moments of my life. It taught me not to keep the things I care about on a distant horizon. The projects, opportunities, and experiences that have shaped me most started when I stopped waiting for the "right" time and simply began.
Adriana performing the role of Dorothée in UBC Opera's 2024 production of Cendrillon during her final year at UBC.
Adriana in Los Angeles for recording sessions in 2026.
