TRAINING DAY
BCIT delivers a wide range of hands-on, technical training. If you're a banking specialist who needs to investigate shady transactions, for example, the school offers a fraud and financial crime micro-credential to show you how.
IT analyst Christopher Frigon has been working for various Vancouver organizations over the last two decades. He completed BCIT'S cybersecurity for IT professionals micro-credential last December. He didn't need it for his job—his employer is a global enterprise with specialized security teams to tackle those tasks. He just wanted to familiarize himself with some tools for personal development, and to see if he'd like to add to or change his role in the future.
This micro-credential delivers substance but isn't designed to make anyone an expert. Becoming fully qualified as a cybersecurity practitioner demands an alphabet of costly credentials. Frigon is thankful he got a taste of the field before he dove in completely.
“If you start to pursue this area and then decide, `Oh geez, that's really not an area I want to get involved in'—it's quite a financial impact,” Frigon explains. He gained useful skills but also realized he doesn't want to make security his central focus: “This was a real nice, bite-sized type of opportunity to get exposure to it and see if that's where I'd like to grow my career.”
Some micro-credentials are stackable— they're stepping stones that can be used for credit toward further studies like a diploma or degree. BCIT offers others meant to stand on their own for professional development purposes, such as its fraud and financial crime investigation micro-credential, or forensic nurse examiner micro-credential.
Students in those programs usually have established careers and are taking on roles that require them to add specific skills. A police gang investigator might need to learn how to track money laundering, for example.
The forensic nurse examiner microcredential teaches skills that are sadly in demand in B.C. “A lot of what we do is help
“This was a real nice, bite-sized type of opportunity to get exposure to it and see if that’s where I’d like to grow my career.” —Christopher Frigon, IT analyst