A life cri­sis for Kris­tine Jar­dine did not come about as a re­sult of a near-death ex­pe­ri­ence, a life-threat­en­ing dis­ease or the loss of a job or loved one.

Jar­dine re­signed from her po­si­tion as a Con­sular Af­fairs Of­fi­cer at the French Em­bassy on Mar­aval Road, Port-of-Spain, af­ter 21 years' ser­vice and re­turned to the class­room.

Four years and one se­mes­ter lat­er she grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Brunswick, Cana­da, with a bach­e­lor's de­gree in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion and as the vale­dic­to­ri­an of her class.

Kris­tine fol­lowed her twin sis­ter Kathryn to Roytec where she pur­sued first the as­so­ciate de­gree in man­age­ment stud­ies then con­tin­ued to the bach­e­lor of busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion, of­fered at Roytec and con­ferred by the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Brunswick, Cana­da. Her con­cen­tra­tion was in hu­man re­sources, fi­nance and mar­ket­ing.

The for­mer na­tion­al hock­ey play­er gave up her ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties to con­cen­trate on school work for three hours a day fol­low­ing her new job as a fi­nance co-or­di­na­tor at Bour­bon Off­shore Trinidad Lim­it­ed.

But why leave the em­bassy?

Kris­tine said: "I had ex­haust­ed most tasks that lo­cals can ex­e­cute at the em­bassy and I could not imag­ine work­ing for the next 20 years, do­ing the same thing, so I de­cid­ed to make a change and switch fields. I got a job at Bour­bon Off­shore Trinidad Ltd–a com­pa­ny in the en­er­gy sec­tor, based in Ch­aguara­mas and which, for sure, was to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from the Em­bassy."

No stranger to chal­lenges and hard work, Kris­tine delved in­to her stud­ies as she did na­tion­al hock­ey train­ing.

She said: "Go­ing back to the class­room was not easy–with a full-time job and do­ing class­es on evenings and on Sat­ur­days and Sun­days. In ad­di­tion to class­es, there were midterm ex­ams, end of term ex­ams, and in­di­vid­ual and group projects.

"Al­most every class had a group project to sub­mit in be­tween the midterm and end of term ex­ams. It was a lot of work to pre­pare for both ex­ams and projects so you nev­er re­al­ly had any free time for your­self–that was a bonus, if it came along.

"Prepar­ing for the de­gree comes with a sac­ri­fice but to me, it was a sac­ri­fice well worth it–ed­u­ca­tion is one of the best in­vest­ments we can make in our­selves–and al­so, I loved this new field, so dif­fer­ent from lan­guages."

At the em­bassy, her job en­tailed con­sular af­fairs (pro­cess­ing pass­ports, ID cards, prepar­ing elec­toral lists, reg­is­ter­ing births, deaths and mar­riages of French na­tion­als in T&T), and trans­lat­ing doc­u­ments French/Eng­lish.

"Now I was do­ing ad­min and fi­nance, so a bach­e­lor's de­gree in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion was to me, a step in the right di­rec­tion to ac­quir­ing the right skills and knowl­edge," she said.

Why do it?

Kris­tine said: "To­day, it's a com­pet­i­tive, glob­al econ­o­my where we are com­pet­ing for just about every­thing. Jobs are no ex­cep­tion. Many re­quire spe­cialised skills and knowl­edge, along with prac­ti­cal train­ing and in many in­stances, em­ploy­ers are look­ing for the most qual­i­fied.

"Af­ter all the as­sign­ments, projects and ex­ams, achiev­ing the bach­e­lor's de­gree was a great achieve­ment and a sac­ri­fice well worth it. Then when I was told that I was se­lect­ed to be the vale­dic­to­ri­an, it was tru­ly an ho­n­our.

"The day af­ter the grad­u­a­tion, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Brunswick Alum­ni Func­tion, one of the pro­fes­sors told me that not on­ly did I get the high­est GPA at Roytec, I topped the list as well among the Cana­di­ans mean­ing that I had the high­est GPA in T&T and at the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Brunswick, Cana­da–Wow! I was shocked."

Did she miss the out­doors of the hock­ey field?

"Hock­ey is a big part of my life, both par­ents played hock­ey and all my broth­ers and sis­ters (six sib­lings). I start­ed play­ing hock­ey when I en­tered sec­ondary School at Form One at St Joseph's Con­vent, Port-of-Spain.

"I have played com­pet­i­tive­ly since then–in the school's league, the T&T school­girls team, Ven­tures and the na­tion­al team."

"I even did some um­pir­ing and coach­ing for a lit­tle bit.

"I al­so love lan­guages, give French lessons, am a mem­ber of the Al­liance Fran­caise and sat on their ex­ec­u­tive board for a cou­ple of years, but these ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties had to take a back seat when I de­cid­ed to go to Roytec and though I missed them, I en­joyed the years at Roytec.

As a na­tion­al hock­ey play­er at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games in Mex­i­co City in 1991, the ver­sa­tile de­fend­er spent al­most as much time on the hock­ey field as in the in­fir­mary trans­lat­ing for play­ers, ad­min­is­tra­tors, as well as the chef-de mis­sion Hase­ly Craw­ford when al­most half the T&T na­tion­al con­tin­gent at the Games was af­flict­ed with Mon­tezu­ma's Curse.

What's left for her?

Kris­tine said: "I see my­self pur­su­ing the mas­ters pro­gramme in HR/fi­nance. Em­ploy­ers seek those with mo­ti­va­tion and a dri­ve to suc­ceed and as more and more peo­ple ex­pand their ed­u­ca­tion, for me, com­plet­ing the mas­ter's pro­gramme will help me gain a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage in my new ca­reer path.