Short, skills-focused learning experiences designed to help you build the capabilities employers need in an accelerated world of work.
Our micro-courses offer quick, practical, and self-directed ways to strengthen your workplace skills. Whether you’re preparing for a co-op term, boosting your confidence with emerging tools or exploring new areas of professional development. Each micro-course is built to help you immediately apply what you learn to real projects, problems and career opportunities.
What to expect from micro-courses
Centre for WIL micro-courses are:
- Short and flexible — typically 5–10 hours, completed at your own pace.
- Applied — focused on real tools, scenarios, and professional use cases.
- Non-credit, self-directed learning — ideal for building targeted skills without the commitment of a full course.
- Career-aligned — content is connected to the competencies employers identify as essential in today’s evolving workplaces.
- Résumé-ready — each micro-course provides suggested resume bullet points to help you showcase your new skills confidently.
Available micro-courses
Applied AI for future-focused professionals
Build confidence and practical literacy in using AI tools responsibly and effectively in the workplace. Gain hands-on practice with AI applications, explore responsible use and learn techniques you can apply directly to personal and professional projects. Self-enrolment is available through LEARN.
Future Ready Talent Framework
Today’s workplace is changing quickly. To succeed across industries and over the course of your career, you’ll need more than technical skills alone. You’ll need adaptable, transferable capabilities such as critical thinking, digital fluency, collaboration and ethical awareness.
Waterloo’s Future Ready Talent Framework (FRTF) brings these essential competencies together. It provides a shared way to understand the skills and mindsets that help students navigate change, contribute meaningfully in the workplace, and continue learning as new technologies and challenges emerge.
Waterloo’s micro-courses are designed with the FRTF at their core. Each course helps you build and apply these future-ready competencies through practical, hands-on learning—while allowing space to highlight specific skills in more depth as you explore individual micro-course offerings.
Questions?
For general inquiries or help choosing a micro-course, contact wilskills@uwaterloo.ca.