Financial aid and mentorship at VIU helped Morgan Carey turn hardship into opportunity – and launch one of Nanaimo’s most successful businesses.
Growing up in the foster care system, Morgan Carey’s journey to post-secondary was filled with challenges. Financial aid helped him achieve his university degree, which gave him the foundation and skills to become one of Nanaimo’s most successful business leaders.
Carey moved to Nanaimo at an early age with his mother and four siblings. His mother, a street musician, was unable to keep the family together and Carey ended up in the foster care system. By Grade 8, after bouncing from home to home, he was living on the streets and education was a distant thought as he struggled to survive.
At just 15 years old, he became a father – a milestone that coincided with the opportunity to go back to school in an alternative learning program. Carey worked hard to finish his high school through that program, finishing three grades in one year, before applying to Vancouver Island University (then Malaspina College).
As a single father who had also adopted his younger brother by this point, Carey wasn’t sure how he would make ends meet while going to university. VIU staff helped him access a combination of student loans, scholarships and bursaries to help him get through.
“There’s no way I could have done it without that help,” he says. “There was no support. I don't have a father. My mother was a blind street musician. There's just no way I could have attended university without the funding programs that were made available to me through VIU.”
Initially Carey enrolled in science courses, but as his journey progressed, he decided to major in Liberal Studies.
“At first I thought I wanted to be a scientist – I got really good grades in the sciences and math, but through that process and exploring the sciences program, I realized that I didn’t want to be a scientist,” he remembers. “In third or fourth year, I tried some other courses, including a Liberal Studies course, and it was just so engaging, my instructors were so passionate, so creative.”
A highlight of his time at VIU was going on a Liberal Studies summer field school to Florence, Italy. He also enjoyed taking classes on a wide variety of subjects, from biology to economics to social sciences.
“VIU has amazingly supportive staff and teachers,” he says. “That flexibility and diversity of experience really helped me in my career. I’m now resilient and I now have confidence. I’ve been able to do very well thanks to the amazing people who helped me build that confidence and my skills.”
After graduating, Carey took a job at a call centre briefly, then left to join a marketing firm, all while growing SEO Guy, the business he started in his basement while still a student. In 2004, he started Real Estate Webmasters, which went on to become the largest custom real estate technology and marketing firm in the world. He also founded the Carey Real Estate Group with his wife, Carly Carey.
“My career since VIU has been nothing but a roller coaster and a thrill ride, we’ve just had so many great experiences,” he says. “And I credit a lot of my success, a lot of my resilience, a lot of my relationships and my ability to build relationships, to my time at VIU. I was a single dad with two kids. I lived in low-income housing and unloaded trucks at Sears at 5 am to try to help pay the bills. I look back at my time at VIU very fondly, wonderful friends, many mentors, wonderful teachers, and I don't think I would change any of it.”
Sub-head: Career advice with Morgan Carey
If you could give one piece of advice to current students, what would it be?
Stop worrying so much. It's not that big of a deal. You're gonna fail a test. A paper is going to be late. You might fail a class even. But in the grand scheme of things, the people who are surrounding you, your friends, your parents, your teachers, they’re all there to help you, not to hold you back. Stop worrying so much and enjoy the ride. Work as hard as you can when you can, but take breaks when you need to.
How can students make the most of their university experience to prepare for the real world?
Get out into the real world. Don't make your life about study. Getting the grades you need to move on in your journey, get your degree, get your master's degree, whatever it is you need to do, that’s important. But don’t make your life only about school. Get out there. Get out in the community. Travel if you can. Even if you have to work a little harder to make enough money to travel, take the break. Get out there and do things. If you want to be prepared for the real world, you have to allow yourself to experience it.
What are some common mistakes young professionals make when starting their careers?
Thinking you know everything and are owed everything early. If you are going to be working for someone, and that someone is going to be a mentor, you don’t need the big paycheck right now. You don’t need the recognition right now. What you need to do is listen and learn. Those people have been there, they’ve done that and their mentorship is all the value you should ever need.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the smartest person in the room when you’ve just arrived in the room. Also, don’t make the mistake of thinking you will make the most money if you demand the most money early. True wealth is developed through experience and relationships. True gratitude comes from understanding that it’s what others give to you that brings value, not trying to take credit for what you can give to other people.
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