Charlie Sirois-Morin was one of hundreds who moved into Georgian College’s Barrie campus residence on the weekend.
More than 650 college students, many with the help of family, got familiar with their new homes near Georgian Drive.
Sirois-Morin, who just turned 21, is in her second year of a two-year game design course.
“We design video games, we learn how to create video games and they prepare us for any job in the industry of developing video games,” the Quebec native told BarrieToday.
Sirois-Morin, who considers herself a Barrie resident, hopes upon graduation to land work with a big company like Ubisoft, but she will have options.
“I’m looking at other ones (companies) that are in Quebec, because I still have family down there, so I can always move back there or even go on my own and start a company,” she said. “That’s always an option and that way I can be my own boss.
“It’s a lot easier to be your own boss, but who knows.”
Sirois-Morin said she still has to find an internship, but Georgian College makes it very possible.
“Our professors are always telling us like ‘hey, here’s an opportunity, go and try out this,'” she said. “It was one of my friends from my old program that told me about it (the game design course) and I’m like ‘sign me up’ because I actually seem really interested in this, and ended up falling in love with it.”
Sirois-Morin said she knows her roommate, so getting set up in residence has been easy — and there are other advantages.
“It’s a lot cheaper, as we found out, and it’s a cheaper option than everything else,” she said. “Especially here, everything is nearby like there’s the grocery store and the (Georgian) community as well.
“They make sure we feel welcome here. They have activities for us to keep us engaged, so we’re not as stressed with our finals and our mid-terms,” Sirois-Morin added. “Because no matter how much you try, you’re still going to be stressed, but I’ve really liked it so far (living in residence). I’m right nearby, so it’s really easy to get to my classes.”
And it also meets with the approval of her mom, who is in the Canadian military and posted to nearby Canadian Forces Base Borden, but will soon be overseas.
“So it was like ‘you need to go to residence. You go,'” said Sirois-Morin. “I had been here a year before, so I knew this was the right decision.”
