Continuing education allows professionals to gain real-world skills and knowledge that can immediately be applied to their current careers.
The best learning happens when you’re able to put your new knowledge into immediate practice. Students at Simon Fraser University (SFU) Continuing Studies in Vancouver are finding programs specifically designed to equip working professionals with skills and concepts they can apply at their own workplace.
Relevant skills
Nicole Cook is the director of operations for a Vancouver engineering firm. In this demanding position, she wears many hats, and she appreciates how SFU’s Business Management Certificate program has helped her to manage the multiple areas she oversees.
“The certificate provides great tools and knowledge of best practices in a wide range of areas,” says Cook. “Business administration is what I do every day, so the case studies, assignments, and various approaches were useful. I’m also now using my knowledge in HR, finance, and marketing to lead different projects.”
Transferable knowledge
In addition to supporting different projects, the skills taught in Continuing Studies also apply to a wide range of industries. Brendan Bernardo, a business intelligence specialist working in public health care, has experienced this firsthand.
After graduating from the Business Analysis Certificate program, he commented, “I’ve been fortunate to apply my learning across the board whenever it comes to anything that requires collecting data and information — just being able to distil the needs and provide the data to support it.”
For Bernardo, the program also allowed him to learn from peers who work in industries very different from his own. “Hearing my classmates talk about what they do in their own fields gave me a lot of ideas on what I could do within health care itself,” he says.
Explore SFU Continuing Studies professional programs.
