When AI Took Her Job, She Took Up Tools: Scholarship Winner Finds a Future at UEI

Taylor Payne is an Electrician Technician student at UEI Morrow and the 2025 Recipient of the ‘Be The Change’ Scholarship. Before even finishing the Electrician Program, she has already been hired.

These days, there’s a lot of talk about artificial intelligence (AI) replacing workers. For Taylor Payne, it’s more than just buzz.

“I was laid off from my job doing I.T. because they rolled out AI at the company where I worked and a bunch of us were let go,” she said. “I just bought a house, and I don’t want to lose it, so I had to figure something else out.”

As artificial intelligence reshapes the workforce, Taylor is proof that resilience is still a human skill. Instead of despairing, the 30-year-old decided to start over in a field no machine could take from her.

“I asked myself ‘What is something that AI physically cannot take from us?’ If the lights go out, you can’t use AI to turn the lights back on,” Taylor said. “That’s when I decided to look into becoming an electrician technician.”

That question became her compass. So, she traded the digital world for electrical circuits, enrolling in the Electrician Technician program at United Education Institute (UEI) in Morrow. It is a decision that has already paid off.

“UEI has been an amazing experience for me,” she said. “The instructors are fantastic. They really go out of their way to help students. Mr. Griffin is my absolute favorite.”

“Taylor has been an outstanding student from day one,” said Mr. Griffin, Electrician Technician Instructor at UEI Morrow. “She approaches every challenge with curiosity and determination, always striving to understand not just how something works, but why. Her commitment to learning and her positive attitude set an example for everyone in the classroom.”

Halfway through the ET program, Taylor says she started looking for a job.

“Every time I was on campus for lab days, I went into Career Services to ask for help. I told them that I wanted to find something right away, even if it is not in the ET field,” Taylor said.

The persistence paid off. “Long story short,” she said with a laugh, “now I am an electrician technician.”

Even before finishing the ET program, Career Services helped her find a job. She was hired as an electrician technician at the U. S. Postal Service (USPS), a position she’s had for a couple of months.

“I help install and maintain the mail conveyor and scanning systems,” she said, adding that she’s aiming to make herself “the most valuable person” as the post office moves to electric vehicles. “I want to stay there. It’s going great.”

“From the moment Taylor came into Career Services, you could tell she was driven,” said Miriam Guillory, Director of Career Services at UEI Morrow. “She showed up consistently, asked all the right questions, and followed through on every lead. Her motivation to secure a new career was truly inspiring—and seeing her being placed into a new position even before graduation was incredibly rewarding.”

“Thanks to UEI’s flexibility, I am able to work in this new field and attend labs on Monday and Wednesday evenings,” she said. “It’s a lot to manage, but I need to stick it out and complete the program because this is the program that got me to where I’m at now.”

“This is paying way better than me working in IT,” she laughed, “and I actually get to see what I build come to life.”

Serving Others Earns Scholarship

This fall, Taylor’s reinvention came full circle when she was named the 2025 Be The Change Scholarship recipient, a full-ride honor recognizing her leadership, resilience, and the community food-drive project that first set her on a path of service.

UEI’s Be The Change Scholarship, a full-tuition award that recognizes students turning compassion into action. The scholarship, established in 2020, honors UEI students who embody the values of compassion, perseverance, and social responsibility. To enter, students submit an essay describing a time that they identified a need or challenge in the community and took action to address it.

While volunteering at a local church pantry, Taylor witnessed long lines of working parents, seniors, and children waiting just to receive basic groceries. But instead of turning away, she turned her compassion into action.

Taylor organized a community food drive called Help Fill a Cupboard, placing decorated collection boxes in schools, coffee shops, and community centers.

She grabbed sturdy boxes and decorated them in bright colors.

“I thought, everything’s kind of like gray and black and white so adding some colors might be what draws somebody’s eyes to this box,” she said.

She posted clear lists of staples: rice, beans, pasta, peanut butter, tuna. At first, “it wasn’t really enough… but it was starting to fill up,” Taylor said. Then momentum hit. “That coffee shop was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Taylor, you have to come see this box.’” By month’s end, the drive had gathered more than 500 pounds of food for local families and sparked others to start their own collections.

The impulse wasn’t just charity; it was systems thinking. Taylor urged stores and restaurants not to throw end-of-day food and asked cashiers to spread the word: “You can repurpose the food that’s being ready to throw away… and help someone in the same process,” she told them.

The experience reshaped her idea of leadership. “It’s not about having all the answers. It’s about inviting others to be part of the solution,” she wrote in her essay.

What began as a few cans of pasta and peanut butter grew into over 500 pounds of food donated to local families in need. Her efforts inspired others to start their own drives and raised awareness about hunger right in their neighborhood. Her essay describing these efforts was selected by the scholarship committee as the first-place submission, earning the full scholarship.

School that meets you where you are

Taylor says UEI’s flexibility has been crucial while juggling work and class. “They recently opened a middle tier for classes. There are different time frames, and they’re willing to work with you,” she said. “If it were not for this flexibility, I wouldn’t have been able to start the new job and continue my studies.”

The scholarship recognition, Taylor said, is fuel to finish strong. “Sometimes… I just really feel like I have to push through,” she said. “Now I’m actually doing ET work. And then I go to class, and do it again. It is a lot to manage but I need to stick it out and complete the program because this is the program that got me to where I’m at now.”

Taylor encourages other students to apply for every opportunity. “I’m so grateful to UEI. I would say just take maybe an hour out of your day to apply to every scholarship,” she said. “You never know what your hour of writing something could benefit your life.”

And she’s not done with service. Taylor is already coordinating with classmates to launch a campus food drive in Morrow to support families in need during the holidays.

“Taylor’s story embodies what UEI is all about—resilience, purpose, and transformation,” said Gregory Falcon, Campus President at UEI Morrow. “We are all filled with pride watching her achieve her goals and represent the spirit of our students so well. On behalf of the entire campus, congratulations to Taylor on this well-deserved honor.”