Former Creston resident and Kootenay River Secondary student, Moriah Edge-Partington has been recognised for her academic achievements, taking out the School of Graduate Studies medal of Merit at the University of Lethbridge’s Spring Convocation.
“It was an honour to receive the award. It feels very nice to be recognised alongside my peers and is an accumulation of the work of my masters.” Said Moriah.
According to a University of Lethbridge spokesperson, Moriah is described as an outstanding student, who consistently exhibits the qualities of tenacity, intelligence, integrity and commitment throughout her studies.
She received her nomination for her thesis, an examination of Work-Related Stress and Resilience in Canadian Teachers, which has been described as an exceptional study examining one of the most pressing issues impacting education internationally.
“I looked at work-related stress. Work -related stress includes burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma. And then I looked at those three elements in associations with resilience and K to 12 Canadian teachers.” said Moriah.
“I wanted to examine if resilience kind of served as a protective factor for work-related stress in this population.”
“I did find that resilience did appear to be a potential protective mechanism to help protect vulnerability to work-related stress.”
“It was found that teachers, for example, who had higher resilience, tended to have lower levels of all three elements of like burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma.”
The Journey
Originally, showing a passion for journalism, Moriah followed a different path post-secondary education.
She quickly learnt this was not the right journey for her before finding herself enrolled in counselling psychology.
“I ended up going through my own kind of career exploration process, and career counseling process. And through that, I realized that I really wanted to help people, whether that was through helping others find careers that they were passionate about and excited to be a part of, and I really liked the work -life balance that this career path provided,” said Moriah.
“And the opportunity for lifelong learning. It’s such a broad field, and there’s so many areas that I feel I can explore and dive into as part of my work.”
Moriah provides this advise to those finishing school, leaving school, or looking for a study or career change.
“Take the time to figure out what it is that you’re passionate about, but also things that you’re good at,”
“I think that there’s a lot of pressure coming out of high school to just choose something and to go into school. And sometimes that’s okay.”
“That was part of my process of figuring out when I was in school what I really wanted to do, but I think also taking that time off after school to dive into that career exploration process, whether that’s through yourself or with the help of a professional.”
“Trust that process and find really what you feel might be the career path for you. And it’s also okay to change. There’s a lot of people who get into a path and change partway through whether that’s in post-secondary or later in their careers.”
But no matter how far her love of learning takes her, Creston will always hold a piece of her heart as home.
“I still hold Creston kind of near and dear to my heart. I visit there a lot.”
“It’s nice to go back to my roots and talk about the work-related stress that I’ve done and where I’m at today, but I owe a lot to where I came from too.”
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