University College of the North’s (UCN) third-annual Industry Engagement Night at the Thompson campus attracted twice as many students as last year for the opportunity to meet informally and chat with 25 employers and industry organizations.
“I think this is the vision that we had for UCN when we started a number of years ago, that UCN is the place where the conversation between industry, students, government and our sponsors happens,” said UCN president Doug Lauvstad. “I hope it continues to get larger and larger and I don’t want to interrupt the conversations that are happening because that’s the most important part.”
UCN co-operative education co-ordinator Krystle Paskaruk said UCN has already engaged more students and employers in career services activities than they did all of last academic year.
“Six-hundred-and-seventy participants have participated in classroom presentations. Over 200 people have dropped into my office for career services. Over 1,700 people have been engaged on social media and over 521 people have participated in career events on our campuses. Last year, the whole year we had 2,700 engagements. In the last 60 days we’ve surpassed that and we’re at 3,500 engagements so that’s pretty awesome.”
Nikita Robinson, originally from Cross Lake, who is in the second year of a business administration diploma at UCN's Thompson campus, was one of the current students networking with employers.
“They see you here, you’re a current student and then they can see that you’re already getting qualified for that position with that company,” said Robinson, who was actually offered a job by one of the employers she met last year but turned the offer down because she wanted to continue her education. Once she completes her diploma, Robinson wants to get a bachelor’s degree in business administration before opening up a daycare back in Cross Lake.
UCN alumni were also on hand to pass what they’ve learned on to current students. One such alumnus was Harkiran Kaur, who graduated from UCN’s office assistant program in 2017 and got a job with Sun Life right away after doing a three-week work practicum there.
“It’s an awesome thing to connect with employers and to learn new things and to learn from alumni. how they worked through this,” said Kaur, who is now licensed to sell life insurance and working to get her licence to sell mutual funds. “No one is going to come to you and ask you, ‘Can you work for me?’ They’re not going to do that. You have to go to them, you have to present yourself, what you can do, what you are capable of doing."
Paskaruk said UCN students completed more than 1,000 work placements last academic year.
“That equates to over 100,000 hours that UCN students have spent in workplaces, an invaluable investment in youth by employers and an invaluable contribution by our students in the workplaces,” she said.
