{"id":86204,"date":"2020-10-08T15:02:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/mature-students-ditch-lockdown-for-the-virtual-classroom\/"},"modified":"2020-10-08T15:02:29","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:02:29","slug":"mature-students-ditch-lockdown-for-the-virtual-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/mature-students-ditch-lockdown-for-the-virtual-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"#Mature students ditch lockdown for the virtual classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Mature students ditch lockdown for the virtual classroom<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n The pandemic sparked a return to school among mature students and recent grads seeking to change careers\n <\/div>\n
\n Sophie Gray was working as a journalist for a South Okanagan news<\/a>paper in British Columbia when the pandemic hit. \u201cSales were down, staff were laid off and it was very difficult to go out and find local stories,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was no room for advancement at that moment; everything was stationary. It didn\u2019t feel like you would be set back by returning to school.\u201d She wound up leaving her job to pursue a full-time public relations certificate at Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies. \u201cI think the pandemic pushed many people to realize that their career isn\u2019t ideal or that it\u2019s not what they really want long-term,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

It also seems to have pushed them back into class\u2014at least a virtual one. Canadian universities are reporting an increase in the number of mature students, as well as recent graduates enrolling in online studies. \u201cNormally, our total registration in online and in-person courses [for spring\/summer] is about 28,000,\u201d says Gary Hepburn, dean of Ryerson University\u2019s Chang School of Continuing Education. \u201cThis spring, it reached over 30,000 in online courses alone.\u201d York University\u2019s School of Continuing Studies also noted an unexpected surge in registration. \u201cWe saw a 50 per cent increase in enrolments year-to-date over last year from mid-career professionals pursuing university-level continuing education programs,\u201d says the school\u2019s vice-president, Tracey Taylor-O\u2019Reilly.<\/p>\n

The reasons motivating adult learners to return to school range from experiencing job loss and seeing lasting disruptions in their industry to taking advantage of the extra time at home to develop new or further expertise. \u201cBefore COVID, I had a good job, but my skills were self-taught. I lacked confidence in the foundational skills of my field,\u201d says Lily Quynh-Thu, who graduated in 2015 with a degree in urban planning before taking on a graphic designer role at an experiential marketing agency in Mississauga, Ont.<\/p>\n

Post-COVID, Quynh-Thu was laid off from her job. \u201cWe worked on big events\u2014exhibits, conventions\u2014and all of these were cancelled,\u201d she says. Anticipating the ways her industry could transform after the pandemic, Quynh-Thu enrolled in an eight-month user experience design certificate program at York\u2019s School of Continuing Studies. \u201cA lot of events are going virtual and there is more need to understand the online user experience in my field,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Quynh-Thu\u2019s decision fits with a trend described by Sheila LeBlanc, president-elect of the Canadian Association for University Continuing Education (CAUCE) and director of continuing education at the University of Calgary. \u201cAt CAUCE, we have noticed an increase in our short-cycle programs that prepare people for a pivot in their career,\u201d says LeBlanc. Short-term certificate programs usually consist of between four and eight courses and tend to be very career-focused. At the Chang School, enrolment in these types of courses more than trip<\/a>led through this year\u2019s spring and summer terms compared to the same time last year. Many certificate programs have an \u201copen entry\u201d process with few or no entry requirements and enrol students on a first-come, first-served basis. Still, many students who pursue continuing studies have already spent time at university. \u201cWhen we look at the statistics, 73 per cent of our students have bachelor\u2019s degrees,\u201d says Hepburn.<\/p>\n

Educational institutions are monitoring the changing demands in the job market. \u201cThere are now tools that scrape online job postings to identify high-demand qualifications,\u201d says LeBlanc. In May, York\u2019s School of Continuing Studies surveyed 124 senior executives across Canada\u2019s largest employers, including Microsoft, Scotiabank and Rogers, within fields that align with the school\u2019s programs. In response to employer and student demands, the school recently launched two new programs in blockchain and one in information privacy.<\/p>\n

Students are also increasingly interested in programs that they view as \u201crelevant to the times and that would enable them to make a contribution,\u201d says Ryerson\u2019s Hepburn. The school\u2019s disaster emergency management certificate program saw a 433 per cent increase in enrolment from the same period last year, while the advanced safety management certification program grew by 383 per cent.<\/p>\n

The spike in student interest in continuing education is served by the growing range of options to choose from. The push to convert in-person classes into digital formats was already under way when COVID-19 hit, but the crisis has given a powerful drive to quickly \u201cbulk up\u201d online courses. The University of Calgary\u2019s offerings have increased threefold. \u201cBefore the pandemic, 27 per cent of our professional continuing education programs were online; this semester, it\u2019s 81 per cent,\u201d says LeBlanc. Some of this growth is also expected to continue after the pandemic, as more students try online learning with positive outcomes. \u201cStudent surveys show that those who never considered taking an online course prior have now done so and had a great experience,\u201d explains LeBlanc.<\/p>\n

The current trends suggest adult learners may increasingly pursue further education in the future. \u201cIf we are going to be a competitive economic society, lifelong learning for all industries and all individuals in different walks of life is more critical than ever,\u201d says LeBlanc. \u201cThis is because of the decreasing half-life of knowledge and how quickly jobs and roles are changing. This pandemic has made anyone entering the workforce recognize the importance of continuous knowledge acquisition more than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“#Mature students ditch lockdown for the virtual classroom” The pandemic sparked a return to school among mature students and recent grads seeking to change careers Sophie Gray was working as a journalist for a South Okanagan newspaper in British Columbia when the pandemic hit. \u201cSales were down, staff were laid off and it was very…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/MAC56_COVID_BACK_TO_SCHOOL01_preview-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[74909,75231,67806,75191],"class_list":["post-86204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-2021-university-rankings","tag-covid-on-campus","tag-editors-picks","tag-macleans-university-rankings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}