Christie Sikubwabo could have played it safe. Employed by Statistics Canada immediately after completing her undergraduate degree, the Ottawa native knew exactly what it meant to be a career civil servant.

“Ottawa is very government focused,” Christie said. “When I worked co-op terms in school, basically all of their resources were catered toward government positions. It’s so accessible, and I feel that naturally everyone kind of just gets sucked into the culture of government work.”

And yet, Christie felt like something was missing.

“In my undergrad, I had taken all of these optional courses in finance and been really interested in them, but there was no opportunity to use any of that knowledge,” she remembered. I was in the government, I was comfortable, and it was good, but I wanted more. I wanted to touch on what I learned in those finance courses.”

That drive to learn more about finance led to Christie exploring more options. She learned about the MFE program at the University of Toronto and attended a virtual information session. [Read more…]