Honours Bachelor of Business Technology Management

It's been a while since my last post on this blog, and a lot has changed since then. Since it is mid-November right now, the Fall semester of 2012 is almost over. Wilfred Laurier University operates by separating the 12 month year into three distinct semesters with each lasting four months. The Fall semester began on September and will end on December. Afterwards, the Winter semester of 2013 will begin, lasting from January to April.

You can confirm that they are equal in length because 12 months ÷ 3 semesters = 4 months/semester. Banish your grade school doubts, for here is a real world application of mathematics.

While the other programs on the Brantford campus will enjoy a well deserved, four month long break between the Fall and Winter terms, the BTM students will remain at school for the duration of what the school calls the Summer semester. This scholastic period, spanning from May to August, is only for BTM in their second year, like yours truly. First years have no worries, since they get to spend the summer off like the rest of the students on the campus.

Why be at the beaches...

But why? Why are we to labour on while the rest of our colleagues enjoy sun, sand and surf? Well, here's why.

...When you can spend your summers studying?

The BTM program is the brainchild of the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT Skills (CCICT), a Canadian coalition that was found for the purpose of addressing the long term ICT skills requirements of businesses, government and organizations. Of course, their name is confusing since there is an acronym within an acronym. For those not in the know, ICT stands for Information and Communications Technology. Now, a group of organizations, including the Ontario provincial government, IBM, Royal Bank of Canada, Xerox, McCain, and a whole strew of other big names, believed there was a deficit in the Canadian workforce with ICT related skills, and established the CCICT. BTM is a post-secondary undergraduate university program that "corporate and academic members have designed to improve the quality and quanitity of business professions capable of implementing ICTs..." The program offered at Laurier Brantford was designed to reflect the guidelines set out by the CCICT.

Check the information the CCICT website gives on the BTM program at: http://ccict.ca/ccict-strategy/btm

Anywho, the BTM program, by an extension the CCICT, requires us to accumulate and achieve 20.0 credits by the end of four years for a Honours Program, which is what BTM is. For each program you pass, you get 0.5 credits. For reference, each semester you can register for a minimum of five courses to be considered a full-time student. Now considering that, if we had four semester of Summer semester off in four years, then that leaves us with six semesters of schooling. If you do the calculations, then it becomes apparent that if we had the same format as the other programs, we would end up short, with only 15 credits to our name by the end of four years. Factor in the fact that the CCICT wants us to perform an addition 12 months worth of co-op on the workforce on top of the 20.0 credits, and you would be looking at a five year course at the least. However, Laurier Brantford has set up the program as such:

YEAR Fall term (Sept - Dec) Winter term (Jan - Apr )  Spring term (May - Aug) 1st Year     Classes on campus   Classes on campus  Summer off 2nd Year     Classes on campus   Classes on campus  Classes on campus 3rd Year   Co-op work term   Co-op work term  Classes on campus 4th Year   Co-op work term   Classes on campus  Classes on campus                    Source: http://www.wlu.ca/homepage.php?grp_id=12613

To progress from first year to second year, you must maintain at least a 6.00 average on MB coded courses, and a cumulative GPA of 5.00 on non-MB courses. For progression from second year to third, as well as from third to fourth and for graduation, the MB GPA must be at 7.00. Of course, failure to maintain these averages will get you out of the Honours Bachelor of BTM and transfer you into a General Arts program.

That being said, it's nothing diligent studying and a few nights burning the midnight oil won't be able to fix up. Just remember that the BTM course is an Honours program in university, and to achieve success, you have to work hard for it.