Graduate makes the move to Canada with the reassurance of new skills
Samuel was looking to move from Africa to Canada and wanted to make the transition easier while also learning new skills. “Coming into Canada, I wanted to come into a field where I didn’t need any formal licensing to be able to function. I also wanted something that was fully structured with an accredited firm,” he says. Today Ebuka is an alumnus of the Cloud Development and Operations graduate certificate from AC Online, and works as a senior site reliability engineer.
Prior to entering his program at Algonquin, Samuel was trained as a mechanical engineer. Looking through AC Online’s program descriptions, he was able to find all the information he needed to make a decision, from cost to course load. “The curriculum was packed from everything I needed in the software development lifecycle,” he says. His one-year program included courses from Cloud Migration to Accessible Design to Devops Security and Industry Trends. As an online learner, Samuel says he appreciated both the support of the fully structured program with module content plus facilitators to serve as mentors, as well as the autonomy to learn independently. “It didn’t stop me from giving my family the time they needed. I had a family balance, work-life balance,” he says. “AC Online was the full package. Everything was covered.”
Working in such a fast-moving field, Samuel was happy to be able to learn the latest skills and immediately added his new credential to his LinkedIn page. “It has given my profile the needed visibility to recruiters. Every week, I get up to three or four messages,” he says, adding that he now encourages others to find their own program fit. “My advice to anyone, if you’re considering AC Online, is just go for it. Go for it as fast as you can. No regrets whatsoever.”