The Experience That Changed Her Life | Laura Stevenson

Defining Moments And Hidden Lessons

Judy Oskam 0:00

Laura Stevenson was 20 years old when she had the experience that would quietly change her life. It was a defining moment. The surprising part? She didn't think it mattered. Not then and not for years. I'm Judy Oskam and welcome to Stories of Change and Creativity. Every one of us has a defining moment, an experience that shapes who we become. But we don't always recognize them while we're living them. On this episode, I'm exploring what was Laura's defining moment, what happened next, and what lesson can we all learn from it? I had the chance to interview Laura Stevenson on the Queen Margaret University campus in Scotland. Here's our conversation.

Laura Stevenson 0:47

So

Laura’s Path Back To QMU

Laura Stevenson 0:48

I am Laura Stevenson. I'm an international officer at Queen Margaret University. And I studied at Queen Margaret University. I've done some other jobs along the way, but then ended up coming back to Queen Margaret University to work. And I've been here for 20 years now.

Judy Oskam 1:05

20 years. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. Well, when you look back at your life and career, uh, what experiences do you think helped shaped who you are today?

Laura Stevenson 1:16

I would say probably one of the major experiences that I had was actually working overseas for six months. It was an internship as part of my degree. Didn't actually appreciate it at the time for what it is, but being able to reflect on it now, I think I can really see that as actually being quite formative to shape who I am today.

Judy Oskam 1:42

Well, I know you talked to our class uh here at QMU, and they really enjoyed that story. We talked about that later. Why did you not find that it was such an interesting experience, or you didn't know how to package it maybe, or promote it, maybe?

Laura Stevenson 2:00

At the time, it was something that was presented to us as being a very task-oriented experience. It was very much, you know, the quote mark of work experience to add to your degree. It was never about the soft skills that come with your own personal development. So it just wasn't something that I ever considered to be important. And it wasn't until I moved into working in student mobility myself that I could see the sorts of experiences that the students I was sending out were having, that I then reflected on that experience overseas myself. So whilst it wasn't an exchange that I did, it was still a time sprint abroad. It was still very similar processes that I was going through in terms of planning and the kind of roller coaster emotions that you go through when you are somewhere outside of your normal comfort zone.

How Martha’s Vineyard Happened

Judy Oskam 3:07

And how did you end up in that location then? Talk about where you were and what you did there.

Laura Stevenson 3:13

So I we knew we had to do this work placement, and it was to take place between second and third year during the summer, and we were given a level of freedom to choose our own destination. Uh, but they also had some places lined up that we could apply to. One of those options was to go to Martha's Vineyard to work for a company called Harbour View Hotel. Um, so it's quite a quite a large hotel that's on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. And I thought, well, I don't really know where to start. I have absolutely no idea. So it kind of takes a lot of pressure away that I can just apply to this option and see what happens. I also applied to go to Mackinac Island as well. That was another one of the ones that they had predetermined for us. And so I applied for both places. Now, Martha's Vineyard, you were at the same time also being considered for the Nantucket um option as well. So they had um it was like a parent company that had a couple of different hotels. Anyway, I was offered both Martha's Vineyard and Mackinac Island. That was a separate one. Um, for Martha's Vineyard, they either would offer you Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, or nothing. They wouldn't offer you both. Um, so I went to our uh our module coordinator and said, Look, I've got these two offers. I don't know which one to take. What do you recommend? And he had been working with a lot of students over the years in uh setting up the placements, and he'd said, Martha's Vineyard have got the best program, um, that's the best experience. I recommend taking that one. So I took that, and there were how many other students? One, three, four, five. Five other students. So there were six of us from Queen Margaret who went out to Martha's Vineyard. I think there was maybe a few also went to Nantucket, and I think maybe only one that went to Mackinac Island in the end. Um, so yeah, so that that's how I ended up at Martha's Vineyard. The recommendation, really, despite having the the offer for two, that's that's the one that I was told to go to. So I took it quite blindly, I guess. I I was very trusting in the academic. Um, I I was very young for my age, I was quite naive. So I very much respected the viewpoint of an elder, really.

Judy Oskam 6:02

Yeah. And how old were you at the time?

Laura Stevenson 6:05

So when I actually went out, I was 20. 20. Yep. And so look ahead then. How did that one turning point help shape your path? And why do you think so?

From a 'Check the Box' Job To Growth

Laura Stevenson 6:21

I did the experience. Um I won't lie, I didn't enjoy the actual job itself. To me, it was very, very much a job I could have done here. Um, it didn't feel special. The destination was special, that was beautiful, but separating work and your living environment, very different things. Um, so yeah, so I just took it as okay, I've done it, it's over, tick the box, move on. Um when I finished university, I had two areas that I was interested in going to work in. One was working in events and the other was working in marketing. Marketing was one of my favourite subject areas at university. And my first job interview, my my first proper job after interview after university, I went into that interview probably completely underprepared. Again, just naive. Your early 20s, right? Yeah, I just wasn't perhaps as engaged as I could be. But I went into that interview and they asked about my experience being overseas. And I think I probably shrugged and just went, it was okay. It was a job I could have done the job here. Like I just I couldn't see the correlation between like the job that I had done there and the job that I was applying for that I was being interviewed for. They just didn't particularly seem relevant. Nobody ever talked about transferable skills to me.

Judy Oskam 8:10

Yes.

Laura Stevenson 8:10

So, you know, I couldn't even look at it and say, ah, well, I did X, and whilst it's not the same task, there's a level of um similarity that you could say was transferable. Just wasn't a it wasn't in my vocabulary.

Judy Oskam 8:28

Well, and I don't think it was in the vocabulary so much then. And I think now it's called identity capital. Yep. And it helps us shape kind of who we are and what we do. Yeah. So how did you then learn from that? And you they kept asking you about it, right?

Laura Stevenson 8:42

Yeah, they did, though. They kept asking, and I still just was not twigging onto it at all. Um, I did get the job, and I do not think it was anything to do with my answers about working in the USA. Um, I got the job, and do you know what I loved that job? Um I really did not value that time overseas until I was working with students myself and could view it. Now I can look at that experience, value it for what it was as personal growth rather than something that was about doing particular tasks, having particular roles within a position. I look at it very much as my personal growth. I am an only child. I lived at home through university, so I had only ever lived with my parents. I had very limited travel experience. A lot of our family holidays were actually spent in a different part of the UK visiting family. Sure. I just wasn't experienced or worldly particularly. Um so yeah, so now working with students, I reflect and say, actually, that's what I got out of this experience. I recognize that now, and I want to support students to be able to recognize that much earlier so that they can start to think about okay, even if I don't enjoy what happens on this exchange experience, what can I still get out of that? What, you know, is it the planning, the organizing? Is it the ability to problem solve, you know, students' luggage goes missing? Well, actually, there's steps you need to go through and processes you need to go through to be able to solve that problem and work around it. That's you know, that's an important experience to have. It builds resilience, helping students to recognize that and then be able to transfer them over to speak to our careers advisors to say, right, how do we actually voice these experiences? How do we translate them so that when they're going for their first job interviews or maybe even interview number two, three after they've got their first job, how do they actually speak confidently about those experiences, be able to say, these are the skills that I have?

Judy Oskam 11:18

Yeah. Yeah. Well, how did you, looking back at your experience then, how did you, do you remember a situation where you really grew personally?

Building Confidence And Resilience

Judy Oskam 11:28

You might not have analyzed it in the time, but looking back, what happened during that time in the US that you really may have come out of your shell a little bit or grown?

Laura Stevenson 11:40

So in class, before I did my work experience, I was a shoegazer, as I I like to term it.

Judy Oskam 11:48

What is that?

Laura Stevenson 11:49

a shoegazer. So when an academic would ask a question in class, my head would go down.

Judy Oskam 11:55

Oh, oh, oh, okay.

Laura Stevenson 11:58

Anything but making eye contact with an academic. Don't ask me a question, do not pick me out in front of my peers. I was very shy. I didn't want to speak out in front of my peers. I just didn't feel confident. And I came back from that work experience and I felt like I had something to contribute. Yes. I had something to say because I did have some personal experience. Um, so it that definitely helped me to grow in confidence a bit. Um, you know, as an only child, I think you don't have somebody pushing you in the same way. Like that parents are maybe parents have different styles, of course, but you know, I didn't have a parent kind of pushing me forward and you know, advocate for yourself, talk for yourself, what have you got to say? I could just be left to do my own thing without any kind of question, really. Um, whereas maybe having siblings, they might push you a bit more, sure, challenge you. And um, yeah, so I I didn't maybe have that. But suddenly I've gone through experiences where I've maybe had to stand up to the employer and question why it is like this. Suddenly I'm in a class and they're talking about human resources, and you think, well, actually, this is the experience I had on this uh this placement, so I've got something to say about it. Right, right.

Judy Oskam 13:25

So it helped you build confidence. Absolutely. And that's that transformative learning that we talk about all the time. Absolutely. But to see it in action and to see, would you have been the same person now if you had not done that?

Laura Stevenson 13:39

No, no way. Yeah, I really don't think I would have been. Um I, you know, there's always things through life that have an impact on you that add piece by piece those different experiences, create who you are. It's not just one experience that has that impact. So it was things like, you know, when you are presenting. So I was never a confident presenter. I was nervous, I needed a script to read. I just couldn't talk to slides with just bullet points. And somebody said to me once, and I I wish I could remember who it was, but somebody said to me, Nobody watches a presentation and hopes you fail. Ah, that's good. And it's a it's a light bulb moment where actually nobody is sitting there with particular expectations of you, perhaps, that they want you to fail, they want you to succeed. Breathe. Remember to breathe when you're presenting such simple, right, simple things that say if you pause, it's not the end of the world. That's right. You don't have to tie all of your words all at once. Right. You need to breathe. So it becomes a much more natural process. So it is things like that that build up over time that you go, oh yeah, gotcha. Right. That's a learning experience. I can put that together. I can now present and not go bright red, tremble, need a script to read from, you know, have all of the words on a slide, you know, that that helps.

Judy Oskam 15:28

Yeah.

Laura Stevenson 15:29

You know, going to another um event, I was uh I worked for the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, and they were talking about, you know, sort of business sales, selling your business. And whilst that wasn't particularly the game that I was in, one of the questions was about, you know, but how do I do this? How do I how do I advance in this particular aspect? And the presenter said you have to believe in what you're selling. And again, that's another light bulb moment where you say, Yeah, this makes sense. So for me, working at Queen Margaret University now, I I studied here, I have a level of um what's the word? I would just go, I have a sort of a sense of belonging to the university. It's part of what has shaped me. I believe in it because I've been through that journey. So when I'm talking to prospective students, whether that's a student coming for a full degree or they're coming just for a short period, I can talk very confidently about the university because I believe in what they're about in terms of the social justice, the inclusion, etc. Um, I I'm passionate about that. It's very much the identity of the university, and I want that to be recognized by prospective students so that they can see, oh, yeah, that's a good fit for me. That's that's where I belong to. And so you've lived it.

Judy Oskam 17:13

You actually are are living it.

Laura Stevenson 17:16

Yeah, it's a true experience. Yeah. And it's authentic.

Judy Oskam 17:18

Yeah. So that's part of back to back to the education abroad. It really is about the experience. Very much. It doesn't really matter where, because some of the same things you're learning, you could plop you anywhere in the world, right?

Laura Stevenson 17:34

Quite literally. When I'm talking to my own students about spending a semester abroad, it's very much over to them to decide, you know, where they want to go. Um, and they may have varying reasons as to where they go. Um, sometimes I will have a student who's very fixed and says, I only want to go to this place. And I try to explain, well, you know, you can put that as your one and only choice, but if there's competition for that place, there's no guarantees you'll go. And I want them to recognise that even if they couldn't get that place, please do consider somewhere else because the wider experience is what's important, not necessarily their ability to get to live in Australia for a semester.

Judy Oskam 18:22

Sure, sure.

Laura Stevenson 18:23

You know, you you could still be having a lot of amazing experiences if you go somewhere else in the world.

Judy Oskam 18:30

Yeah. What's

Travel Biases, Paris, And 47 Countries

Judy Oskam 18:31

the most surprising to you when you deal with students and when you yourself have have uh traveled quite a bit? What's been the most surprising and maybe the place that calls you?

Laura Stevenson 18:45

What's uh my own personal travel where I want to go, where I um do you know, this is terrible to admit, but I maybe as a younger person had quite a bias towards France. Didn't want to really engage with it. Um had no desire to visit there. I went through university with a French friend and you know, we got on, but there were also clashes. And maybe I also maybe that also influenced my feelings towards going to France. It became quite generalized. And I have since gone to France and I've been to France every year, I think, for at least 12 years now. I love it. Paris is my favourite city in the world. I cannot get enough of it.

Judy Oskam 19:42

What is it about Paris that speaks to your soul?

Laura Stevenson 19:45

Oh, I wish I could tie it down to one thing. It's um I describe Paris as a person that I love. Um I when I leave, I feel a sense of sadness, a sense of loss. Um there's just something about the atmosphere of that city, the beauty of that city. And you know, let's be clear, I don't just hang around the tourist spaces. I'm going into the arrondissements that are not on the tourist map at all. I love to explore, and Paris is just the city that always has my heart absolutely captured. And it that surprises me when you know you I think back to my younger self who had this prejudice of France and you know, I didn't like the people, I didn't know the people. Right. Not really. Well, you were a kid, so exactly. It's just I guess you hear things from other adults and you think, oh, okay, we don't like the French, right? Yeah, actually, that's a learning experience in itself to say don't carry those prejudices, go and explore it for yourself and make your own mind up. And as it turns out, I adore France. Paris is the best. Um and okay, I can understand why some people don't like the city itself. It's a big city, it's a big city, not everybody is a city person, not everybody's into culture, not everybody's into food, you know, whatever. People have their reasons about why they like one place over another if they're if they're traveling. Um, but Paris, I think, will always remain a very special city to me that I had never expected to love as much as I do.

Judy Oskam 21:34

And since you began your journeys, how many countries have you traveled to?

Laura Stevenson 21:40

47. And 47. 47. And I have just booked a trip that will tick off country number 48 with potential sidesteps into 49 and 50. Okay. Can you tell us where? I'm going to Dubrovnik in Croatia. Nice. Um And I particularly chose Dubrovnik because it is right down at the bottom end of Croatia where the country is quite thin. And I can get a little sidestep quite easily into Bosnia and Herzegovina and also into Montenegro. So yeah, I did specifically choose the city based on the ability to get to at least one other country, as it turns out, I can get to. And it's something that I have started to do more recently in the last few years is look at if I'm going to one country, are there any other countries neighbouring that I can also get a sidestep in? It's almost become this silly competition. Yes, I see it. How many more can I get to? Um I'm a big fan of a website called Skyscanner as a research tool for visiting places. So, you know, I know what countries I've been to, I know what's on the list still. If I have vacation periods available to me, I will look at Skyscanner. You know, I'll say my starting airport is Edinburgh.

Judy Oskam 23:13

Sure.

Laura Stevenson 23:13

My destination is everywhere. Boom, boom, boom. There's a list of destinations, and I work my way through it and I say, Well, I'm already in the UK. I've been to Ireland, I've been to France, I've been to Portugal, I've been to France, you know. Oh, I haven't been to Slovenia.

Judy Oskam 23:29

I love that. So your life then is about travel and it's about adventure. Yes, it is. And I love it. So look ahead five years. What will your country count be then? Oh my goodness. What's your what's your goal on that?

Laura Stevenson 23:45

Everywhere? Everywhere. Every country. Oh, do you know I wish, but I don't think that's necessarily realistic. And I am a very realistic person. I'm still very grounded. Um, I am fast running out of European countries to get to. Um, I've yeah, I've still got some major players I haven't been to, like I haven't been to Austria yet. Um, but I am I'm definitely running out of European countries, so I need to also start to think well, if I'm going further afield, that takes a bit more planning, a bit more money. Sure. Um time, the budget. Thankfully, I have good holidays working for a university, not the same as a student, but uh we do get very generous holiday allowance. But it is about being able to plan that to say, right, where have I not been? What's realistic? What can I do to capture as many places as possible? Um, and potentially going back to Australia next year. Um, it's a bit of a sort of personal journey related to my great-great uncle, who was killed in action in World War I, and he was given a watch by the townspeople from where he was living on his way out, and after he had been killed, that watch was sent back to family who were in England. And my dad had always said he would quite like to see that watch go back to the town. Oh wow. So my dad passed away a few years back, but this is something I would like to do in his memory is to be able to take that watch. Um, it's a town just outside of Sydney. Um, take that watch back. Um so that's sort of on the cards, but alongside that, you know, this would be my fourth trip to Australia. Stopovers, stopovers feature. And so, you know, I'm already thinking, well, where have I not been as a stopover on the way to Australia? So I'm thinking, you know, could I get to Vietnam, which I haven't been to, or South Korea? I haven't been to, because I've actually ticked off quite a few of the standard stopovers. I've been to Singapore, I've been to uh Thailand, I've been to China, I've been to Hong Kong. Um, so you know, I've I've ticked off a lot of those traditional stopovers. So but is is there another route that I could take that gives me maybe two more countries in addition to Australia? Yeah, yeah.

Judy Oskam 26:28

And I want to circle back with you after you we do the watch story later. We'll talk about that later because that's a that's an interesting story there too. So so from you're in your 20, you're starting, you're going to this place. It doesn't give you what you think you should have, but look what it has done for you.

Laura Stevenson 26:49

Absolutely. Um, no regrets at all that I did that. Um, it's interesting because I actually went out on that uh that work experience with my best friend at university. Um, she had a different role within um within the company, but we went out together, we shared a bedroom, um, and we were there to support each other. Um, she also had a negative experience with the employer. Um, and she's never got over that. If we ever talk about that experience, she she's almost vicious about it. You know, there's this real hard line of nope, that was awful, hated it, absolutely no way, nope, and doesn't see the value. And I do wonder if I had maybe followed a similar sort of career path as she had, would I feel the same? Has the fact that I am now working with students, is that what's shaped me to be able to look back on that experience and flip it to say whilst it wasn't maybe the best work experience, perhaps I got other things out of it. Well, yes, I did.

Judy Oskam 28:08

Is that a mindset that you learn from the negative as well? Yeah. Not only the positive. So yeah.

Laura Stevenson 28:16

I mean it's it's interesting because she is, you know, we're talking over 20 years later, she is still quite triggered by that experience. She can't look at it with any sense of fondness. Um I can look at it and say, put the job aside, the destination was beautiful, you know, I met some nice people, I got to see things that I would never have seen had it not been for that opportunity. Wow.

Judy Oskam 28:48

So

Go For It Without Regrets

Judy Oskam 28:49

what what do you tell students now, thinking, I need an adventure, I have an opportunity, what should I do? I've never done it before. Go for it.

Laura Stevenson 28:59

It sounds really cliche. Um, one of the things that I say to students on a mobility experience is it's short term, it's not forever, it's actually low risk. You know, if you think about that sort of opportunity, it's not something you could necessarily do once you finished university and you got yourself a mortgage and a permanent job, you don't have the same level of freedom. Not everybody is necessarily privileged to have that freedom, but those who maybe don't have commitments like caring responsibilities, mortgages, they do perhaps have that freedom that says, go for it. Try it out. If you don't like it, that's okay. And that is a learning experience in itself. Um, but if you like it, that might whet your appetite for other adventures. That might be the catalyst to saying, actually, maybe I do want to live abroad and I know I can handle it because I've done it before. But just having that little taster that gives somebody the confidence to take the leap rather than taking a leap of faith that is completely without any base. And then say, yeah, this is for me. Or actually, it turns out I am a homebody, which I have had one student say to me before, I'm a homebody. It made me actually appreciate more what I have here.

Judy Oskam 30:38

Well, that that is an angle. It does make you realise, wow, I have such interesting things in my regular life that I was taking for granted. Yeah, yeah.

Laura Stevenson 30:49

I you know, she said, I I don't need to jump on a plane and seek the world because uh I'm a homebody. That's what I want. Um and I think of her now and think, well, what if she hadn't had that experience? What if there was a you know, a bit of the the itchy feet and I need to get out here? And she gave up everything to explore that, and she realizes very quickly it's not for her. Well, you know, what does that look like? That's a big risk.

Judy Oskam 31:21

Sure.

Laura Stevenson 31:22

So you're kind of you're packaging this almost risk-free experience for a student to say, try it now. Yeah, if it's not for you, that's fine. If it is for you, you know it's for you. Yeah. You know, you have the certainty behind you that this is this is the route you perhaps want to take in life.

Judy Oskam 31:43

Yeah, and I I never want to end up with the end of my life with regrets. Yeah. So I'd rather would have tried and then changed my my focus than not tried at all. Yeah. Or gone on the trip or taken the chance, you know?

Laura Stevenson 32:00

Take a chance. I mean, there's plenty of places that you can travel to and go, that wasn't quite for me. That wasn't my destination. But I've ticked the box, I've seen it. You know, it it it gives you the confidence to keep going as well, I think, to say, survived that.

Judy Oskam 32:18

That's right. What else can I do? That's right. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing with us. Appreciate it.

Laura Stevenson 32:25

You're very welcome. Thank you.

Final Takeaways On Defining Moments

Judy Oskam 32:27

Well, the takeaways for me today, Laura's story reminded me that defining moments don't always announce themselves. Sometimes it's not clear until after, and we don't recognize the significance until years later. Today we explored a couple of questions. The defining moment? For Laura, it was the experience she almost dismissed and brushed off. And then what happened next? As she reflected on that experience, she discovered the confidence and resilience it had given her. And it helped her build a career, helping students recognize those same opportunities in their own lives. I love that. And I had Laura talk to my class at QMU this past summer. And the lessons we can all learn, don't be too quick to judge the experiences that we're living in right now. What opportunity seems ordinary or even disappointing may be preparing you for what's next. I can certainly relate to that. Those defining moments, they shape our lives. And what we do next shapes our future. I'm Judy Oskam, and this is Stories of Change and Creativity.