Many professionals believe that their busy lives will prevent them from going back to school. Forty plus hour work weeks. Family obligations. Volunteering and pursing personal hobbies. The solution is finding a part-time program that will not only help advance your career, but allows you the flexibility to handle all your other responsibilities.
Rebecca Kapogiannis is an HR Business Partner at 3M. After graduating university with an honours BA in political science, she went on to various different human resources roles including those in talent acquisition and engagement and diversity before her current role. After entering the HR field, she wanted to expand her knowledge and work toward the CHRP designation.
“Following a move into the Human Resources space, I was eager to expand my knowledge,” says Kapogiannis. “The HRM program through York Continuing Studies allowed me the opportunity to broaden my knowledge of HR through a focus on very specific content areas that were relevant to the work that I was doing on a daily basis.”
An important factor for Kapogiannis in choosing a program was flexibility. She needed something that would be able to fit in to her busy work and personal life. A program like York University’s Certificate in Human Resources Management was designed for busy working professionals in mind. Offered completely online, the interactive platform offers students the opportunity to develop a rich network of peers, while enjoying the convenience of learning at their preferred location.
“It fit perfectly into my busy schedule – balancing a full time career, along with raising a family and being active within my community, doesn’t leave a lot of time to get to a classroom on a specific day and time. The online learning format allowed me to engage at times that worked with my schedule. In my case, geography was an issue. The York program offered the content that I was looking for, but getting to a Toronto campus on a weekly basis would be challenging. The online learning format allowed me to login anytime, anywhere.”
The School of Continuing Studies designs its online programs so that students can study at times that fit their own schedule, as long as assignments are completed on time. Even though the courses are completely online, there is still a strong social element to the programs due to the cohort model – meaning you interact closely and progress with the same group of students.
“Hands down, my favourite part of this program was the ability to engage with others who were also looking to expand their knowledge of human resources,” says Kapogiannis. “Each person brought a unique perspective, influenced by their background and experiences. Sharing those perspectives and experiences helped to enhance the learning and bring reality to the content.”
As for next steps, Rebecca plans on using the knowledge gained in the online HRM program to pursue her CHRP and possibly CHRL/CHRE designations.
“I firmly believe that the Human Resources Management program provided me with a strong foundation of HR knowledge and concepts on which to continue building my career.”
