Education and Independent Study

Education

Bachelor of International Political Economy

Year: 2026-current

After nearly a decade working in technology and entrepreneurship, I'm returning to university to study the systems that shape societies.

International Political Economy allows me to bring together long-standing interests in economics, politics, technology, culture, psychology, and systems thinking.

I hope it will allow me to apply my thinking to hard problems with other curious minds and allow me to contribute to the world of academia.

Education

Opinion Writing Course - Columbia+

Year: 2026-current

I am completing an opinion writing course through Columbia+, exploring how to transform complex ideas, personal experiences, and societal observations into clear public writing.

As someone who has always used reading as a way to understand the world, this course helps me develop the craft of turning reflection into pieces that can participate in broader social conversations.

Education

Mon Commerce en Ligne - École des entrepreneurs du Québec

Year: 2024

I completed the Mon Commerce en Ligne (My E-commerce) program, combining personalized coaching with self-paced training on e-commerce strategy, digital tools, marketing, and online business development.

I enrolled in this program with my Heartfelt Words project.

Education

Diploma of Collegial Studies - Business Computing (incomplete)

Year: 2017

I briefly studied Programming at Collège de Rosemont in Montréal before choosing to go work in a company instead.

The experience taught me that I learn best through complexity, real-world problems, autonomy, and rapid application.

Education

High School Diploma and Governor General's Academic Medal

Year: 2016

I completed my high school diploma with the highest academic average in my school, receiving the Governor General's Bronze Medal.

Education

Diploma of Vocational Studies - IT Support

Year: 2013-2016

At 15, I entered an accelerated pathway combining my final two years of high school with a vocational diploma in IT support.

The program introduced me to computer systems, networking, databases, programming, technical troubleshooting, telecommunications, and customer support.

More importantly, it brought me into the professional world at a young age and started a journey through technology, software, consulting, design, and entrepreneurship.

Education

International program

Year: 2003-2014

From primary school through my first three years of high school, I was enrolled in a highly competitive international program emphasizing global perspectives, cultural openness, and additional language learning.

Independent studies

Independent technical learning

Year: 2020-2022

Throughout my career, I continuously pursued self-directed learning through LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight, and freeCodeCamp.

My studies covered software architecture, APIs and web services, object-oriented programming, Python, C#, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, responsive web design, algorithms, data structures, software testing, quality assurance, and modern development practices.

This continuous learning allowed me to move between technical support, programming, analysis, CRM development, and broader technology strategy.

Independent studies

Psychological healing, inner work and personal change

• The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel van der Kolk, MD
• Feeling Good - David D. Burns, MD
• No Bad Parts - Richard C. Schwartz, PhD
• Inner Work - Robert A. Johnson
• The Courage to Be Disliked - Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
• Untangle Your Anxiety - Joshua Fletcher
• The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor, MA
• Rejection Proof - Jia Jiang, MBA
• Designing the Mind - Ryan A. Bush
• Mind Your Body - Nicole Sachs, LCSW

Independent studies

Neurodivergence, self-knowledge and accessible living

• The Autistic Guide to Self-Discovery - Sol Smith
• Divergent Mind - Jenara Nerenberg
• Empowered Women with ADHD - Linda Roggli, PCC
• Le Profil Asperger au féminin - Isabelle Hénault, PhD
• Your Rainforest Mind - Paula Prober, MS
• Women and Girls on the Autism Spectrum - Sarah Hendrickx
• How to Keep House While Drowning - KC Davis, LPC
• ADHD Money - Tina Mathams

Independent studies

Embodiment, simplicity and ways of living

• The F*ck It Diet - Caroline Dooner
• The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz, MD
• Good Sugar Bad Sugar - Allen Carr
• How to Eat - Thich Nhat Hanh
• The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan, MA
• The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson

Independent studies

Intimacy, sexuality and attachment

• Bliss Club - Jüne Plã
• The Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton, LMFT and Janet W. Hardy
• The Jealousy Cure - Robert L. Leahy, PhD
• Polysecure - Jessica Fern, MS
• The State of Affairs - Esther Perel, MA, LMFT
• Sex at Dawn - Christopher Ryan, PhD and Cacilda Jethá, MD
• What Is Compersion? - Marie Thouin, PhD

Independent studies

Communication, family and social bonds

• Nonviolent Communication - Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD
• How to Know a Person - David Brooks
• How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
• Read People Like a Book - Patrick King
• The Panic Years - Nell Frizzell
• Raising Children Compassionately - Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD
• All the Rage - Darcy Lockman, PhD

Independent studies

Attention, persuasion and collective sense-making

• The Anxious Generation - Jonathan Haidt, PhD
• Co-Intelligence - Ethan Mollick, PhD
• Hooked - Nir Eyal, MBA
• How to Win the War on Truth - Sam Spitale
• The Storytelling Animal - Jonathan Gottschall, PhD
• All Marketers Are Liars - Seth Godin, MBA

Independent studies

Decolonialism and possible futures

• Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer, PhD
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
• 1984 - George Orwell
• The Fifth Science - exurb1a
• Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers
• A Prayer for the Crown-Shy - Becky Chambers

Independent studies

Business, startups and market creation

• The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - Al Ries and Jack Trout
• The Boron Letters - Gary Halbert
• Cashvertising - Drew Eric Whitman
• The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
• The Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick
• The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman
• The Serious Business Owner's Guide to Doubling, Tripling, and Quadrupling Sales - George Mittias
• Zero to One - Peter Thiel, JD

Independent studies

Money, economics and financial agency

• We Should All Be Millionaires - Rachel Rodgers, JD
• How to Lie With Statistics - Darrell Huff, MA
• The Psychology of Money - Morgan Housel
• The Soul of Money - Lynne Twist
• Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt, PhD and Stephen J. Dubner
• The 4-Hour Workweek - Timothy Ferriss

Independent studies

Design, knowledge and intentional systems

• The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman, PhD
• Building a Second Brain - Tiago Forte
• The Decision Book - Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler
• The Get Things Done Book - Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler
• The 12 Week Year - Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo
• The Curated Closet - Anuschka Rees

Independent studies

Intellectual community

I regularly entertain intellectual conversations with friends, mentors, and peers across disciplines and countries.

Through high-quality moments with scholars, entrepreneurs, autodidacts and other curious minds, I keep encountering new cultural knowledge, philosophies and domain-specific knowledge that allow me to shape how I see the world.

Independent studies

Art practice

I started drawing in primary school and continued developing my practice into adulthood, gradually integrating acrylic painting, watercolor, digital illustration and pixel art.

I attended watercolor classes with painter Jocelyne Bouchard and continued studying both traditional and digital mediums independently.

My artistic work has included paintings, portraits, character illustrations, environment art, pixel art, game assets and digital illustrations for personal projects, gifts, causes and occasional paid work.

My main digital art tools have included Photoshop, Paint Tool Sai and Aseprite. Through them, I explored character design, perspective, values, color theory, composition, portraiture, environment art and pixel art. I also briefly explored basic 3D modeling through Blender, ZBrush and VR tools.

These skills allowed me to earn a small income online as a teenager, understand the reality of selling creative services early on, and build assets for later personal projects, including game and digital art.

Independent studies

Design foundations

My design foundations grew out of years of visual art practice, then became more intentional as I moved toward UX/UI design and digital product work.

I studied visual principles such as contrast, color theory, composition, information hierarchy, typography, layout and interface design, connecting artistic judgment with practical communication.

My design tools have included Photoshop, Canva, Illustrator, Affinity Vector and UX/UI tools such as Figma or iterative front-end development, depending on the project context.

My artistic background made the transition into UX/UI design more natural: I already understood visual balance, hierarchy, readability, composition and audience perception, and only needed to deepen the more product-specific parts of interface design.

The combination of art and design allowed me to move between expressive visual creation and functional digital design, especially when building websites, interfaces, brand materials, prototypes and game-related assets.

Languages

English

C2 certified in English through the Duolingo English Test, with a score of 160.

I use English comfortably in professional, academic, creative, and intellectual contexts.

Languages

French

French is my native language.

I completed secondary-level French with strong results, including 95% in Secondary V and 92% in Secondary IV.

Languages

Languages I'm exploring

Beyond French and English, I have an ongoing curiosity for languages as doors into different ways of seeing the world.

I have beginner foundations in Italian, shaped by immersion and family proximity; Spanish, first introduced through several years of school; German, through a few months of classes and self-study; and Swedish, through early independent exploration.

I hold these languages less as finished skills and more as living invitations into other ways of thinking.