Picture the journalist who graduated from her post-secondary training 25 years ago. The internet was still in its infancy, but the media landscape was about to change drastically.
YouTube? Never heard of it. Podcasting? What is that? TikTok? Isn’t that the sound your clock makes?
Change can be daunting, and change can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be.
Whether you need to adapt or pivot professionally, or if you’re leaving high school and embarking on your post-secondary journey, BCIT School of Business + Media meets you precisely where you’re at along your career trajectory.
Featuring more than 1,000 different course offerings, BCIT’s Flexible Learning is similar to night school but with a few crucial distinctions – namely, the fact that these are academically accredited courses that act as building blocks towards your diploma, degree or next career milestone.
“Flexible Learning is truly anything you want it to be,” explains Jennifer Figner, interim vice president, academic at BCIT. “It can be for someone who is directly out of high school who maybe doesn’t know what they want to do right away, so they can take a few different courses before they decide. Or, it could be for someone who wants to do a full diploma or degree, but for any number of good reasons, they don’t want to study on a full-time basis.”
As one of the largest business and media schools in Western Canada, BCIT School of Business + Media offers more than 100 full-and part-time programs that exemplify the Flexible Learning advantage.
This highly successful facet of the BCIT model of excellence allows students to study in person, online or through a hybrid model that puts you in charge of the pace of your education.
“Given the cost of living in the Lower Mainland, it makes it very difficult for someone to give up working to go to school full time, so we’re seeing more and more people wanting flexibility in their studies,” Figner describes.
And the School of Business + Media offerings are vast: accounting, finance, marketing, professional sales, tourism, entrepreneurship, project management, broadcast, graphic design and visual arts, operations and business administration, among others.
As for the instructors, picture them as the very same people you could be rubbing shoulders with in your chosen field upon graduation. These are people who bring real-world experience, in real-time, to each class because they are, by and large, still working in those professions.
“This is one of the biggest value propositions of Flexible Learning. The people who are teaching those courses and programs are industry experts in the subject matter,” Figner explains. “You are learning from people who are fully up to date in what’s going on in that area of your studies.”
Suppose the world of skilled trades is where you see yourself in the future. In that case, BCIT covers virtually all of them: carpenters, electricians, welders, boilermakers, pipefitters, sheet metal fabricators, heavy equipment operators, airplane maintenance workers and marine operators, among others.
New Canadians can also work towards foreign credential requirements across a host of different disciplines to fill shortages across any number of different sectors.
But perhaps you’re asking yourself, ‘Why now?’
Look no further than the province’s recently released Labour Market Outlook 2022-2023 Forecast.
It’s a document that shows that B.C. is expected to have more than one million job openings between 2022 and 2032 – of those, nearly 80 per cent will require some form of post-secondary education or training.
Additionally, it’s estimated that more than 600,000 people will leave the workforce over the coming decade.
It’s no secret that employers face challenges in finding enough trained workers – as such, job seekers need to expand their skills and competencies as jobs continue to evolve.
“Flexible Learning is so well designed to meet those targets,” Figner explains. “For people who are in entry or middle-level jobs, we provide them with the specific training and skills to get into a new position. They can come and take a course, and boom, they’ve got that job.”
Now is your time. And your place is BCIT.
To learn more about how the BCIT School of Business + Media’s Flexible Learning Program can help set you up for success, visit bcit.ca/flex-businessmedia.
