It Pays to Stay is the provocative title of a study published a few years ago by Canada’s Corporate Higher Education Forum.
It shows beyond a doubt that having more education almost certainly means more money in your jeans. The report puts to rest the image of hordes of PhD’s driving taxicabs. If there are any of those out there, their underemployment is probably because of personality quirks, not educational deficits.
Continuing education opportunities are now becoming a tool in the high-stakes game of luring and keeping the most desirable employees.
The head of the Canadian Medical Association was recently grilled by Bruce Dowbiggin, who was guest hosting CBC’s Homestretch show.
“Is there any hope of keeping the best doctors in Canada,” asked Bruce, “or will they go the way of the high-flying hockey players?”
The gist of the answer is that yes, we can keep some of the superstars, and one way is to give them a clear path for continuing professional development. Calgarians in particular are clearly in love with lifelong learning.
A few years ago, a study showed that one in five takes a formal continuing education course in any given year. This makes me smile from ear to ear, since, as dean of the U of C’s Faculty of Continuing Education, lifelong learning is my passion, too. My job gives me an interesting perspective on just what we want to learn and why.
Technical skills are high on the list. If you pick up our Fall 2001 Program Guide, either from your mailbox or a stand around town, you’ll see a glossy color centrefold on Object Oriented Software Technology.
There are no girls with staples in their navels, but there is some pretty sexy information. For example, more than 95 per cent of the OOST graduates receive offers of full-time employment in the IT industry within 30 days of completing their paid work practicum.
The type of work is important, because some less demanding programs wind up placing their graduates – but not in the jobs for which they hoped. I won’t mention the institution, but a few computer program alumni once knocked on my door to see if they could paint my house!
So if you’re looking at a high-end program, and OOST takes 700 hours and 10 months out of your life, ask some hard questions. Then get ready to work your butt off.
A visit to our OOST computer lab shows that some people virtually live at their workstation during the course. They cozy it up with photos of the kids and their favorite coffee mugs.
The demand is so great that we’ve just expanded the program to a third lab. Employers love to hire the graduates because anybody who gets through this program has the technical skill, people savvy and work ethic to succeed.
Calgarians also tell us they want to be better, more confident leaders. To help them, we’ve struck a partnership with Steven Covey’s company, Franklin Covey, and will be offering a two-day course called First Things First: Leading from the Inside-Out.
In fact, leadership-related courses take up three pages in our program guide, with titles including Rekindling Commitment & Inspiring Performance and Mastering Competing Demands of Life and Work.
Woody Allen said that 80 per cent of success is just showing up, but some people are so busy they just can’t make it to a face-to-face class on campus. One solution is satellite campuses.
Mount Royal College has a longstanding tradition of offering some of its courses downtown and at other centres, and the U of C also delivers a number of business-oriented programs in the city core. We also have programs at St. Mary’s College campus for the convenience of those who live and work in the south end of town.
If you just can’t show up anywhere on a regular basis, consider an e-learning program. They’re becoming more popular, and you can access them from anywhere in the world. The Telecampus site (see Web watch) will point you in the right direction. Of course, you just might find the best online courses coming from your own backyard.
With any luck, I now have you clamouring for some lifelong learning. Just remember that you don’t want to strain your vocal cords. To prevent that, you might enjoy meeting operatic soprano and voice coach Katherine Ardo, who teaches one of our most unique courses – Vocal Fitness.
She works with all kinds of professional voice users such as singers, actors, teachers, clergy and politicians. She even got one local youngster through the tension of his Bar Mitzvah speech. Now that’s “just-in-time” learning!
See you in class!
Web Watch:
www.oost.ca
www.ucalgary.ca/ctedcourses.telecampus.edu
