Increasingly, employers are looking to see if engineering graduates have had these kinds of experiences when they're out to hire new staff. One of the first phone calls Gruzleski receives once he becomes dean might be from Yalovsky. As the head of McGill's Centre for Continuing Education since 1993, Yalovsky has been a tireless advocate of tighter links between his centre and McGill's faculties. It was a struggle at first, but the message is finally getting out there. The whole concept of lifelong learning is becoming an essential part of the way we live.
People find they have to go back to school at various points in their career to acquire new skills.
But going back to school doesn't necessarily mean getting a master's degree or a PhD, says Yalovsky. Sometimes all you need is something that's intermediary or very focused in its scope. A master's program tends to be research oriented. A degree they can do part-time at night while they continue to work. The centre has built up a series of partnerships with McGill departments, offering a course on venture capital for a graduate degree offered by the Department of Experimental Medicine, for instance, or collaborating with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to teach a summer program on microelectronics design.