Career Options
Project management grads snapped upArun Masih may have been the keenest student of all in Humber College's 2007 Project Management certificate program. DAVID CHILTON -- Special to the Toronto Sun |
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He left his job at Dell Computer in India Sept.1, arrived in Toronto Sept. 3 and started school Sept. 4.
Masih, 25, can laugh about his experience now, but last year there was no time for joking. "Things were happening so fast for me. All this happened in 15 days," he says, recalling how he chose Humber over the University of British Columbia because of the "amazing feedback" from those who knew the school.
ONE-YEAR PROGRAM
The post-graduate program Masih signed up for is now three years old, says Carlos Frewin, its co-ordinator. It accepts a maximum of 43 students for the one-year, full-time certificate, but that's only because of limited space. "We had so many applications we're talking about a second class in January (2009)," Frewin says.
It's no surprise the program is over-subscribed. Frewin says the employment rate for his graduates is virtually 100%. That's because they can work in any industry, he explains.
Project managers do exactly that: manage projects. Frewin says Humber teaches students to apply a set of tools and knowledge to the scope, cost, scheduling and quality of projects, large or small. The program follows the standards of the Project Management Institute. Domestic tuition fees are about $5,300; international students pay about $11, 200.
To be accepted into the program applicants must have a degree -- which almost all have -- or a college diploma. Disciplines common to many of the students include engineering, architecture and business. Frewin says his students tend to be fairly recent grads, and approximately half of them are internationally trained. Masih, for instance, has a degree in Business Administration from an Indian university.
Irrespective of their background, most students in the program have essentially the same goal, Frewin says. "They generally come here to get a leg up in a tough job market."
Tough, yes, but he goes on to say that although many positions are going offshore, there's still lots of "higher end" employment available as plants and other workplaces retool to compete in a more competitive environment.
It was the demand for more competitive skills that led Elize Ceschia to Humber's post-grad program. She, like Masih, enrolled in the course in 2007 and they both graduated this spring.
Ceschia says she wasn't sure she wanted to go straight into a Master's program in Chemistry following her graduation from York University last year. "I wanted to acquire some
competitive skills and broaden my horizons," she says on the phone from Queen's University in Kingston, where she's starting a Master's degree.
'GREEN' CHEMISTRY
Ceschia, 23, sees herself doing "green" chemistry when she completes her graduate work and expects she'll call on her project management training if she's working for an environmental agency or on sustainability issues. "I don't see myself in a lab (after Queen's)," Ceschia says.
She can't know where she'll work, of course, but Frewin can point out some sectors that are showing their interest in his graduates now that the program is getting better known. Atomic Energy Canada employs one graduate and major property developers are hiring, as are the banks. But then so too are medical equipment makers. XLTEK in Oakville hired Masih following his graduation, although finding a job took him a bit longer than it did to get here.
davidchilton@rogers.com
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