Three months ago, I happily accepted a communications position with the University of Victoria for the summer as a coop work term. Never did I think that—instead of walking up the street to work—I’d be driving 1000 miles to Calgary, Alberta! 

And here I am, two days from leaving for what should be four of the most exciting months of my life! I’ll be working as a Business Analyst in the Finance department as part of the internal consulting team. 

Last year, at a time when the company’s cost per available seat mile, or CASM—a key industry indicator—was spiraling out of control, WestJet created an internal program called “Ideas that make Cents” to look for ways to cut costs. Since then, there have been approximately 2000 ideas submitted and still almost 1000 left to evaluate. My job will be to sort through these ideas and then liaise with various business units to find innovative ways to implement the grassroots idea into the current operation. 

I think I will enjoy this position as it gives me a chance to work with many different stakeholders. I have to admit—I’m not a finance genius by any means—and I usually wouldn’t consider a position in the Finance department of any company!

But this job is different. The ideas come from people all over WestJet’s world and they can vary drastically. For example, one idea involved reducing the number of pages in Up! Magazine, our in-flight reading material. This task would require interaction with the Marketing department (to talk to the magazine’s content producers), Technical Operations (to determine how much weight and fuel, exactly, are we saving per flight) and other units as well.

As for Calgary as a place of residence, I’m pretty excited to get off the island! Granted, it’s supposed to snow in Calgary today, I am excited for being able to travel from WestJet’s hub. I’m planning on visiting a friend on coop in Ottawa, I’m going to New York City for a long-weekend, and I’ll get to fly home to visit family and friends often!

I’m going to commit to you right now that I’ll update my blog (at least) once per week throughout the summer!

C.