In the Business Operations Management program, we have different industry projects and the top project ends up presenting at our Industry Showcase event. In my case, my team placed second and we ended up presenting at an event for the Vancouver Chapter of the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM), which was really impactful and helped me actually realize that what I did applied to the industry and they were interested to learn about what our team experienced at a different company and not necessarily just what we learn at school. We presented our client presentation and they asked us questions about our procedure and process and how we solved the problem for our client.
I chose BCIT because of the small class sizes and the hands-on industry experiences that I would get. It was really interesting because faculty had worked in the industry, if not actively working in the industry, which made everything that we learned very applicable and you knew that you were getting a relevant education for something that you could apply after you graduated from BCIT. It was always a fun time in class.
BCIT was different from studying at a traditional university. I studied Political Science and Legal Studies, so the content was very different from Business Operations Management. It was entirely different in terms of class sizes, actually knowing your instructor, being able to engage with your instructor, and showing up to their office and not feeling like you don’t know them. It was also really great to move through classes with the same people and provide each other support with the immense workload that you have at BCIT.
The best thing about the relationships built at BCIT is that I’m still friends with everyone. It’s great in terms of networking. We all work in different industries and it’s really great to keep up with each other and see what’s happening with each other’s roles because Business Operations Management is sort of this wide scoping field, so everyone does different things and it’s really great to have this wide network.
BCIT definitely set me up for the real world just through practicums and learning how things actually apply in the real world rather than just theoretical. What I liked about my program was that everything I learned was translatable to the real world, it wasn’t just an instructor standing at the front of the class lecturing you, it was you actually taking things and doing hands-on exercises. Taking what you learned and applying it to a client’s site later that week. It was an experience that I lacked in with my traditional university studies, to be honest.
About Jessica’s job at Urban Systems
Everything that we learned was applied and I still use it every day. Today, I work as a consultant and my work mainly revolves around planning and supporting local municipalities and First Nations with financial decisions and supporting governance. If you are interested in understanding how a business runs its logistics and how a business operates day-to-day, Business Operations Management is a great program. It teaches you everything from financial support to helping make process decisions that guide businesses in making sustainable, long-lasting impacts for their clients or for their themselves.