Advance your career with this option from McMaster Continuing Education

The ElevateYourSkills option at McMaster Continuing Education enables Mac students to gain professional learning alongside their degrees. ElevateYourSkills an accessible and flexible way for students to gain career skills in a wide variety of areas.

Lorraine Carter, director of McMaster Continuing Education, explained that, with the competitiveness of the job market, this option can equip students with the tools that they need to succeed professionally. Carter also added that the option was particularly built with students in mind.

“Now there is great attention by industry, employers [and] government on not only academically prepared students but also students who have a practical skillset when they graduate. This idea of elevating or enhancing the skills that you can utilize shortly after graduation is what ElevateYourSkills is all about,” said Carter.

Carter emphasized that traditional university education, which often includes more theory-based learning and less practical knowledge, is also incredibly valuable for academic enrichment and skill development. She further emphasized how academic skills are even more valuable when complemented with practical skills.

“If we think about, for instance, the social sciences and the humanities, they cultivate many important skills, but they can be hard to articulate. Whereas, if you are an English student or history student and you can complement your studies with courses and programs that are focused on career development, then I think you are in a better and easier place to leap forward and secure work that is ideally meaningful for you,” said Carter.

Michael Foster, a communications student at McMaster, completed a digital marketing certificate through McMaster Continuing Education. As a fourth-year student applying for jobs now, Foster is glad he did the program.

One of the greatest benefits, Foster said, was being able to put the theoretical knowledge he learned from his communications classes into practice.

“[T]here were some aspects that I got taught through communications that complemented the different technical skills [in digital marketing] such as search engine optimization or digital marketing strategy, market analysis or Google ad campaigns and how to properly write different captions, closed captioning and blogs for different companies . . . I thought it was really, really good to understand that, while also understanding my theoretical side, so I can put everything into my best practice,” said Foster.

Read full article at The Silhouette