If you are reading this article, it’s because the words we chose for the title caught your attention, right?! Knowing how to target an audience, and keep it, are just a couple of the things students will learn in the Bachelor of Digital Marketing Communications program, one of four new programs Algonquin College is launching in the next two years.
The Digital Marketing Communications (Honours) program will offer a mix of digital technology and the writing aspect of digital marketing, including analytics, research, strategy and storytelling. For the program’s coordinator, Karen Kavanagh, the launch comes at a critical time for the industry.
“Every year, more and more marketing communications initiatives are being promoted through digital media,” says Kavanagh. “With our current situation, with the pandemic, it’s being heightened.”
Algonquin’s approach in this program will give future professionals skills that no other program in the country offers so far, with two co-ops, wherein students will gain hands-on experience while still in school.
“Our graduates can actually work in any industry, in any company, or work independently as consultants, because every company needs to promote their services,” says Kavanagh.
On the technology side, two new Bachelor Degrees will be receiving applications next year. One with emphasis on Business Systems Development and the other focused on Digital Health. A great advantage is that the two Bachelor programs share 65% of the curriculum, giving students the option to switch between them.
The Business Systems Development (Honours) program will fill a gap in the industry, says Reginald Dyer, the coordinator of the new Technology programs.
“I was researching other programs available across Canada. In fact, I researched North America, and I could not find any program that had the same mix that we have in our particular program.”
Dyer tells students coming to the program that right from level one, they will be exposed to the foundations of business, accounting, management accounting and business intelligence.
The Digital Health (Honours) program comes at a critical time, when technology has been used more than ever in the healthcare field.
“I get chills going up and down my spine when I think of this Digital Health program and the reason I get that is because we’re right now in the mode where we have to maximize this technology aspect in the healthcare environment, and we don’t have a choice, we’re all now visiting our physician using technology,” says Dyer.
The list of new investments in education also includes a program in the School of Hospitality and Tourism, the Bachelor of Culinary Arts and Food Science (Honours) program, set to launch in 2022. This program will combine food and science, and it is the first of its kind in Canada.
This program is not only about teaching people advanced skills in cooking and baking, but also teaching them food science and food safety.
“This gives another option for the experienced people that have been in the industry to get involved in food manufacturing and food processing,” says Michael Bakogeorge, the Chair of Culinary Arts, School of Hospitality and Tourism at Algonquin College.
Bakogeorge explains that chefs, cooks and bakers haven’t often been involved in this industry in the past, it was mostly people from food science programs. Now, they are seeing an influx of knowledge coming from the people that have worked in the food and beverage and food processing industries.
“Students will get the opportunity to be given a butter chicken sauce from a local restaurant and say, ‘We’d like to take this product and make it refrigerated or make it shelf-stabled or have it frozen’ and then they go back to the lab and they get to play and figure out, ‘Okay, so, what do I have to do to get this to work?’,” says chef Cory Haskins, professor and coordinator of the Culinary Management program.