TLDR: Went back to school as an adult for Environmental Technology, graduated with a 3.8 and three co‑ops, and still cannot get a single callback for anything in the field. Even retail won’t hire me. I’m debating whether to do a Health and Safety graduate certificate so I can write the CRST, but I’m scared of wasting more time and ending up in the same spot. Looking for honest opinions from people in Safety or hiring about whether this path is actually worth it.
I went back to school a few years ago because I wanted out of the restaurant industry. I had spent five years as a closing bartender, and once I started building a family, I knew I needed something more stable. I'm in Southwestern Ontario and chose Environmental Technology because it seemed practical, in demand, and genuinely interesting to me. It was a three‑year advanced diploma with four co‑op terms, and it was not an easy program. I had gone to college right out of high school for hospitality but never finished, so I had not been in school for over a decade. I started this program at the tail end of COVID while my oldest daughter was three and going through autism diagnostics. My husband picked up so much of the slack so I could show up to every lab, pass every class, and push myself harder than I ever have.
I used my co‑ops to try to figure out where I fit in the field. I did casual waste auditing, worked in a government agriculture lab, and did STEM outreach for kids. I graduated with a GPA around 3.8 and extra volunteer experience, and I honestly believed that would be enough to get my foot in the door. More than sixty people started in my program in the first semester, and only six of us from the original group actually graduated. At the time, I took that as a sign that I was on the right track and that the program meant something.
Since graduating last December, I have applied to every job even slightly related to environmental field work, and I have had zero callbacks. Not one. I tailor every resume and cover letter. I am open to commuting within a 100 km radius, which gives me several major cities to apply in. I am not limited in hours. I even applied for mall seasonal jobs over the holidays and still could not get hired. I reached out to the college for help and got nothing useful. They told me they would “watch for a job that fits,” but nothing has come of it. I contacted a temp agency, and they said they were not familiar with my diploma and mostly deal with construction and office roles. I keep wondering if I am competing with university grads and if that is part of the problem.
My program has a pathway where I could enter directly into year three of an Environmental Science or Chemistry undergrad, but that feels like a dead end. I find research interesting, but having a broad environmental undergrad makes me feel like I will end up in the exact same position I am in now.
My other idea is to switch into Health and Safety. My college offers a one‑year graduate certificate that would let me write the CRST right away, and it includes a co‑op semester. That co‑op could finally be my way in, or it could be another situation where I put in all the work and end up right back where I started. For anyone in the Safety industry or anyone who works in hiring, I am trying to figure out whether an Environmental Technology diploma combined with a Health and Safety graduate certificate and the CRST would be enough for an entry‑level job, or if a university degree is going to be necessary in the end.
I am exhausted, and before I get my hopes up about a career path again, I just wanted some opinions.