Gregory Stephens is a Founder at Trinity Systems. He possess expertise in public speaking, adobe after effects, customer success, mailchimp, sales and 40 more skills. Colleagues describe him as "Although I’ve only known Gregory for a relatively short time, I came to know him quite well during the Fall 2017 academic semester when I taught him BUSA 4700 Critical Thinking and Ethics – a seminar-based course, which requires the instructor to continually interact with students throughout the class as well as afterwards during office hours and via email. As an educator that has over 10 years teaching experience, a constant that I’ve seen in the UK, US and Canada is the very hard struggle students with life experience / mature students (those who had been working full-time and returning back to school after a significant amount of time) have with the organizational culture and operations of higher education institutions, the power imbalance between students and staff, and interacting with younger undergraduate students. Greg, as with many students, has struggled a bit with the norms and values found in higher education institutions and how they operate, which had a slight negative impact on his grades. I’ve communicated with him on a few occasions on this matter and offered insight and advice. Additionally, from my interactions with his other instructors who deliver a typical lecture (PowerPoint and have very little interaction with students), it appeared a few of them didn’t get to know him or other students very well or wanted to accommodate reasonable student requests, including health-related ones. Most of the instructors he had in his first semester spoke highly of Greg and foresaw him doing very well at BCIT. A sentiment I share based on the conduct I observed of him. Near the beginning of the semester, I provided Greg with some harsh constructive criticism regarding his written communication skills. I expected and was fully prepared for an emotional angry response. This did not occur. Greg sought me out and calmly explained during the meeting that he had been working full-time in the energy sector (manual labour, in a supervisory role) and relocated to Vancouver and enrolled at BCIT as a means to have a successful mid-career change to another industry. He further elaborated that although it was difficult to hear the criticism, it was important for him to know what he needs to develop. He then spent the semester focussing on improving his written communication skills, which was clearly evident in the subsequent work he submitted in the course and the high grade he received in a communication course he was taking. I have found it very rare for a mature student to pivot on what they are going to focus on during a semester, especially to take their attention away from career-specific material and put it towards something that many domestic students consider as unimportant. Typically mature students either distance themselves from the younger undergraduate students or, as someone who is older and possess more life experience, they adopt a supervisor / parent / leader role and treat the other students as being beneath them since they lack k"