BRITISH COLUMBIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Rejection to opportunity: Interior designer, TV host, and BCIT alumna Jillian Harris couldn't have designed a more fulfilling career

by Emma Berg

For Jillian Harris, interior design was a side hustle in the beginning. In between shifts as a salesperson at a home décor store and as a server at Cactus Club Café, she freelanced as a design consultant taking on small jobs as she could. When the co-owner of Cactus Club Scott Morison heard about her consulting business, he hired her to help design his restaurants.

For inexperienced but enthusiastic Jillian, it was a dream job until she got fired.

Turning rejection into opportunity

"I was extremely humbled," she says about being let go, admitting that without any formal training, she didn't know what she was doing. "I felt so defeated but I knew I had to keep going."

Jillian decided to go back to school and enrolled in BCIT's Interior Design certificate program. She graduated in 2008. As an alumna with a fresh credential under her belt, Jillian was re-hired by her former Cactus Club boss to design his newest restaurant chain, Browns Socialhouse.

"[BCIT] taught me attention to detail, how to organize my thoughts and creative ideas, and how to bring ideas to fruition," says Jillian. "I learned so much about space planning. I also learned to work my ass off, even if that meant spending the night in the drafting room, which I did many times!"

As a student at BCIT, Jillian says pulling all-nighters was a matter of survival. It was also preparation for more challenges that would test her resilience in ways she could never have imagined.

"I've been rejected and I've failed many times," she says. "From being fired from Cactus to being heartbroken twice in front of millions!"

She's referring to her time as a bachelorette on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette television series (after working at Browns), for which she signed up in search of love. In The Bachelor, she was second runner-up in the race to win bachelor Jason Mesnick's heart, and in The Bachelorette, she ended up getting engaged to bachelor Ed Swiderski only to break up very publicly months later. While the love-matching franchise didn't help her find lasting romance (she is now happily engaged to fiancé Justin Pasutto with whom she has two young children), it sparked a love affair of another kind.

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