When Jess completed her undergraduate degree, she found herself at a crossroads. Look for an entry-level position in primary health care? Or pursue additional studies to streamline her career path?

Having decided to take the further education route, Jess began her search for a graduate certificate program that would provide the experience she needed to make her resume stand out. She found the right fit in Hamilton at Mohawk College and enrolled in the Mental Health and Disability Management Graduate Certificate program.

"My degree gave me a solid foundation, but I knew I needed practical skills and workplace experience," says Jess. “With so many opportunities to learn outside of the classroom and get involved in the community, Mohawk’s graduate certificate program checked all the right boxes for me."

 

From classroom to career

As a leader in experiential learning, Mohawk’s graduate certificate programs prepare you, in one year or less with experience you will use in the workplace. Embedded in all programs are learning opportunities developed in cooperation with industry partners, such as capstone projects, work placements, and interactive simulations. These partnerships formed between industry, colleges and universities are key to students leaving with relevant skills for today's job market.

As a university graduate, these opportunities to specialize and gain industry-relevant experiences can build on your degree and make a difference in your job search. In fact, 88.6% of Mohawk grads find employment within six months of graduating. *

 

So, what’s your goal?

Securing a job in a field directly related to your undergraduate studies? Consider a graduate certificate program that complements your existing knowledge base.

Interested in working in an industry that’s entirely different from your university major? Your bachelor’s degree is the key to being eligible for a diverse range of graduate certificate programs.

For Jess, combining her undergraduate degree with a graduate certificate has given her the confidence that she’ll have both the knowledge and the skills to help fill gaps that exist in primary health care environments.

Ready to go further? Explore Mohawk College Graduate Certificates today and find the one that’s the right fit for you.

 

* 2017-18 KPI Student Satisfaction and Engagement Survey

 

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As February comes and brings on Valentine’s Day and assignment due dates, I’m reminded of the possible incompatibility of my relationships and my future plans, something I’m sure I share with others.

With no guarantee of where you may end up after finishing your undergraduate degree, having a long-term partner during your early 20s comes with a series of questions that force you to evaluate your future and your relationship.

Every once in a while, I will check on some old acquaintances from school only to find out that they are not only married, but have children on the way. Others have settled into stable jobs after completing technical, professional degrees.

Whenever I do this, I ask myself, “where is your life going?” and I start taking stock of everything and everyone in my life. Most importantly, I consider my relationship with my partner and how he fits in with my post-grad plans.

While my partner and I have only been together for a little over a year, relatively speaking, we’ve been together for a long time. He’s been a constant in my life for the majority of my undergraduate so far, and it’s hard to picture McMaster without him here.

As someone who loves to plan everything out, I hold a ton of anxiety over how my partner will factor into my post-grad life. Will we end up in the same city? Will we have similar schedules?

I already stress out over grad school applications even though I haven’t even finished third year, so trying to coordinate it with a whole other person is my own personal hell.

I maintain that having a long-term partner while young isn’t really the issue. No matter how old you are, you’re making a commitment to someone without any concrete evidence that your relationship will succeed, using only inferences made from your past. So long as you’re honest with your partner and willing to compromise, most relationships can do well. The problem lays in the insecurity of your early twenties.

Very little in my life is set in stone right now. While I have some concept of where I want to end up after my bachelor’s degree, nothing yet is confirmed. Like most 21-year-olds, my life is a crushing monotony that I must follow, lest I ruin my future, and it’s essentially the same case for my 24-year-old partner.

There isn’t necessarily a fear of breaking up. Social media makes long-distance relationships easier than they have ever been before. For me, the fear is in how these changes may diverge from each other and inadvertently colour an otherwise healthy relationship.

Much of the research surrounding development agrees that people continue to mature well into adulthood and it’s no secret that a change in environment will cause someone to behave a little differently.

I often wring my hands worrying about how my partner will change once he leaves Hamilton at the end of this semester, mostly concerned that our dynamic may change when he starts the next part of his life.

That’s not to say change isn’t good; ideally you would want to grow with your partner and mature together, especially if you started dating as young as we did, and if you’re changing your environment, you’re going to have to grow.

But a quiet voice in my head will always remind me of how easily things between us could shift, and how quickly we may lose sight of each other. This is especially a concern when you’re a little younger than your partner, as I am, because I’m always going to worry that I’m not achieving my goals at the same rate as he is.

These thoughts are, in my case, unfounded and easy to overcome since all they really require are good communication. So long as you’re talking about your issues, you can grow as a person and still maintain a good relationship with your partner, something that I have found with my partner in the last few months.    

You might still break up, but you will at least have the infrastructure to productively talk about your issues. And to me, that’s really what’s most important: even if things don’t work out, there’s no reason for your breakup to be a bitter affair, especially when so much of what happens in your 20s is outside of your control.

At times it feels like I fell in love too young, but that discredits the support and fulfillment me and my partner offer to each other.

While it would have probably been easier to fall in love after I found a stable job, I wouldn’t trade my relationship with my partner for anything. No matter where we end up, I’m glad we’re together.

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A strike may be on the horizon here at McMaster.

CUPE 3906, the union which represents all employees at McMaster, announced on Oct. 28 that all unit 1 workers, which is comprised of teaching assistants and research assistants, are going to take a striking vote, starting on Nov. 1. This announcement was posted on their website.

The vote does not automatically translate to CUPE going on strike, but rather gives the union the bargaining power to call a strike later.

The main bargaining points are centred around guaranteeing PhD students funding for five years as opposed to four, since this is a better reflection of how long it takes the average student to finish their thesis.

Additionally, CUPE hopes to secure access to mental health services from the Student Wellness Centre for graduate students.

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Related Post: CUPE 3906’s new campaign

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I don’t know what I’m doing for Halloween. I don’t know what the weekend will consist of, what life after my next midterm will be like or what’s for breakfast tomorrow morning.

“I’m keeping my options open,” was usually my response whenever someone asked about my plans for life after McMaster. While this is true enough, it was a cop-out answer that really meant short-term goals, school or work related, were taking priority over the intimidating reality of how I want to define myself after university. It’s difficult to think about a year or more in advance when your day-to-day challenges are current and more obvious.

It’s too easy to get caught up in the present. If it weren’t for the pestering of nearly everyone I knew and a coincidental Avenue notification in one of my classes detailing an upcoming grad school information session, it is very unlikely that the idea of preparing for post-McMaster would have occurred to me.

While McMaster has a substantial amount of resources related to preparing students for the inevitable, the worry is simply that the university doesn’t do a good enough job promoting these.

On Oct. 18, 19 and 20, there is a “Continuing Education Fair” in the MUSC Marketplace. Between Oct. 11 and Oct. 17, a total of eight posts were made between the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the McMaster Student Success Centre about the event. It doesn’t show up on any of the main McMaster University social media accounts, and it doesn’t show up on any of the events calendars on the McMaster Daily News, the McMaster Alumni website or the McMaster site.

The chances of you finding out about the event were about the likelihood you happened to follow one specific subset of McMaster related content and were coincidentally one of the impressions. Why should you care about the event when McMaster barely seems to?

With over 70 post-graduate representatives showing up, you would think there would be more of an effort to ensure current students know what’s happening. While the MUSC Marketplace has heavy traffic, it does not account for students who may not have classes close by enough to stumble on the event. It certainly doesn’t help that workshops at the fair require registration on OSCARplus too, so a student finding out about it last minute may not be able to participate.

Maybe there’s an overreliance on hoping the initial “apply for graduation” option on Mosaic suddenly sparking motivation. The logic that post-university is inevitable and thus should be considered is fine on paper, but often fails when life right now is so prominent. I’m simply not sure if the university assumes students will find out about events through their own means and drive, or if they don’t actually care about pushing the community towards becoming productive alumni.

It is disheartening to see constant news about McMaster alumni and their successes, but so little about how to actually achieve similar success. The most tragic part is I have absolutely no idea what other events or resources I have missed as a graduating student because I wasn’t in the know, didn’t follow the right niche on social media or didn’t see a poster in a hallway I’ve never gone down.

While the university has prepared me for the future education-wise, I feel like the university has let me down when considering the lack of importance placed on how to actually use this education. All it would take are a couple more reminders about what McMaster is already providing to its students.

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By: Bina Patel

Allison Rutland is arguably one of McMaster’s most notable alumni. She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities in 2002 with a concentration in Multimedia and Fine Arts. She now works for one of the world’s most renowned animation studios, Pixar. Just a few weeks ago the talented alumna won an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in A Feature Production at the University of California for her work in Inside Out.  

Rutland considered pursuing a career in animation early on but she did not give it much thought, especially while attending high school. She recounted, “I was interested in it when I was younger but then in high school I thought I would be an environmental scientist, and then ended up going to McMaster for Art.”

She credited McMaster for establishing a theoretical perspective of art, and noted two professors in particular. “Judy was the painting professor and Hugh was the life drawing [professor] — they were really good, I really enjoyed them,” Rutland said.

The move from McMaster to Pixar Animation Studios was a gradual process. After her undergraduate education, Rutland applied to Sheridan College for computer animation. And after working on film and television in Toronto and London for a few years, she decided to apply to Pixar in California, something she says friends helped her accomplish. “I had friends who were at Pixar three years before me and it kind of made me want to apply here. They helped me submit a reel.”

Rutland says working on animated films requires a range of skills. Animators are assigned various shots by the leads, followed by a shot briefing. “You get a series of shots and you animate what’s in those shots. Sometimes there might be several characters and sometimes there might be one character. It’s not a definite thing,” she explained. Rutland and her team have worked on some high profile movies, including Brave, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University. She says that Sully remains one of her favourite projects. “I had a fun time on Monsters University. I ended up getting a lot of Sully shots and kind of got to know that character well because I got so many shots with him. It was really fun.”

The staff works rigorously on these films and, according to Rutland, animators always feel their comfort zone is being pushed. “It’s one of those jobs where you’re always learning. You kind of have to approach it almost as a student every time and you’re always going to come across something that’s really difficult,” she said. “I like that aspect of it because I always challenge myself to learn and get better.”

Of the 120 animators at Pixar there are roughly 25 women, a ratio Rutland explained has affected the way some characters are created. Brave for instance was a female heavy film and therefore required for a high level of femininity in its characters. “When there’s a female character, you kind of end up getting the women to animate them cause they can bring a certain amount of femininity that maybe the men wouldn’t know about. All my shots were Merida, she was the only character I animated with them,” she explained.

Rutland is thankful for all the small steps that led her transition from an undergraduate at McMaster to an animator at Pixar. “It’s a really great job, I love it. I feel very lucky to have gotten in at this time to be where I am.”

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I’m reaching the end of my degree. This will be the last semester of my undergraduate, and the first question that everyone but my cat wants the answer to is “where are you working after you graduate?” So on the cusp of graduation I have one honest recommendation for anyone looking for work: stop listening to almost everything people tell you about your future.

I fully recognize the irony in writing an article advising you to stop listening to advice, so instead let me tell you that all advice is not created equal. You need to be wary of who is giving you guidance and how applicable it really is. Traditional places we might look for help — friends, families, teachers — might not be as helpful as you’d hoped. Anyone who hasn’t had to job search in the last ten years is likely unable to tell you how to overcome our chronic job shortage. There is a reason why our parents’ generation often advised us to get an undergraduate degree and find a steady job with benefits and a retirement package. In their time it was not uncommon to secure a career in one industry, often with a single employer. Instead, our generation will be faced with multiple careers and more jobs than we can count, shaped by an ever-changing marketplace.

So if we can’t take advice from past generations, where can we turn? Googling “career tips” returns a huge number of results, but you should also be wary of taking advice from articles online. While tips on how to write a professional email or acquiring a business casual wardrobe may be helpful, don’t mistake that advice for anything that will help you stand out in a crowd — and there will be a crowd, because for every job that is publicly posted there are going to be a flock of applicants. Be wary of advice that is available to everyone, because at best it will help you conform in the market, and at worst make you forgettable.

Another thing to be critical of are buzzwords. I am firmly convinced that anyone who tells you to develop a “personal brand” doesn’t fully know what that means either. Take phrases like “personal elevator pitch”, “networking” and “rapid skill acquisition” with a grain of salt. If you can’t understand advice because it is wrapped in ambiguous or esoteric language, it is probably not going to be very useful to you anyway.

Be especially suspicious of advice that doesn’t take privilege and oppression into account. As study after study confirms what we already knew — that women and people of color are considered to be less qualified and are less likely to be hired — telling someone to “follow their dreams” ignores the fact that pursuing a career in your desired field is much easier for some than others. The best thing you can do instead is seek out advice tailored to your situation. If you can, look for someone you admire in your field with similar life experiences and reach out to them for guidance. You would be surprised how willing people are to mentor the enthusiastic and give you advice you wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere. If there is no one like you in your chosen field, just be prepared for a potentially longer and more arduous job search.

Be wary of advice that is available to everyone, because at best it will help you conform in the market, and at worst make you forgettable.

So after telling you what advice not to follow, let me give you the advice that has worked best for me: focus on yourself. Often times finding a job is an exercise in ego; we are constantly trying to prove to potential employers that we are worth their time and money. You need to see the value in your own work, otherwise how will anyone else see it too? Not everything you do will be groundbreaking, but take the time to appreciate your own improvement, and strive to get better at what you want to do. As best as you can, demand fair pay for your work, and don’t compare yourself to your friends or coworkers because it isn’t going to be helpful. Don’t let other people dictate what your career is going to look like, because at the end of the day you are the one accountable for your work.

Photo Credit: Corbis Images

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By: Kaiwen Song

MCAT? Thank God that’s done! Autobiographical sketch? Just needs another look. Supplementary essays? Completed and edited! Now I just pray that my reference letters arrive on time.

This September, many of my peers and I applied to medical school through the Ontario Medical Schools Application System. In addition to the full application, OMSAS requires that three physical copies of completed reference letters be received by Oct. 1 — not sent by, not postmarked on, but received. Although many medical schools understand the variability of mail delivery times and use Oct. 1 as a flexible deadline, certain schools don’t. The University of Toronto medical school this year is notable for declaring on its FAQ page that if a reference letter arrives at OMSAS even just one day after the deadline, the corresponding application will not proceed to file review.

As you can imagine, the weeks leading up to the deadline were a very stressful time. In addition to taking the MCAT, completing our autobiographical sketch, and writing our supplementary essays, we also had to take all the necessary steps to ensure that our reference letters arrive on time. Unfortunately, as students, we can only do so much. We begin by asking our potential referees early to provide them with plenty of time to write it, as well as for the letters to arrive at OMSAS safely before Oct. 1 through the postal system.

As the deadline approaches, we start to send carefully worded reminders to our referees — forceful enough to express the reference letter’s importance, but restrained enough to not offend. Although we understand that our referees lead busy professional and personal lives and require time to complete the letter, we can’t help but feel uneasy since our entire applications are on the line. At the time, it felt supremely unnerving and frustrating – all of our hard work can be undone by something outside of our control.

Upon further reflection, I am surprised to say that I actually believe that the University of Toronto medical school’s strict deadline is fair. If the deadline was flexible, up to what point should reference letters to accepted? One week after the deadline? One month? There must be a clear deadline to ensure that all applications are processed in a timely manner, and Oct. 1 seems perfectly reasonable.

That being said, I would like to advocate for the change from physical reference letters being mailed in to electronic references sent through email. The biggest source of stress regarding references was the unpredictability of the postal system. Reference writers could send the letter weeks before the due date, but there’s still the chance that it could arrive later than the deadline, especially if the letter is coming from another province or country. If a letter is lost in the mail, students have no way of determining whether that occurred, and there may not be enough time after this discovery to ask for another letter. All of these issues can be addressed by switching to an electronic system, such as the one used by the United States’ undergraduate college application system. Students are asked to input their referees’ email addresses into the system, and their referees will receive a secure link in which to comment on the student’s suitability for their applied program. As soon as the reference letter is submitted, the student will receive notification of its completion.

An electronic system for receiving reference letters will streamline the process, reduce the anxiety of students at a very tumultuous time in their lives, and ensure that all applications can begin to be processed in a timely manner. As anyone can tell you, applying to medical school is hard enough already. Let’s not make it harder than it has to be.

Photo Credit: Ontario Universities' Application Centre

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