A new initiative to support student employability is coming to campus. EDGE is an optional experiential education certificate program for traditional (non co-op) students. The program is designed to offer students professional development, career readiness and planning for future success in the workforce.
“The University of Waterloo has a long history of exceptional experiential education for students in co-operative education,” said Jessica Lang, manager of EDGE in WatPD. “Because EDGE is a certificate program for students on the traditional track, it brings some equilibrium to the student experience under the career readiness umbrella.”
To earn the EDGE certificate, students must complete four foundational requirements: a skills identification and articulation workshop, a career development course, three work or community experiences completed alongside academic credit courses, and a capstone module or workshop focused on post-graduation planning.
This fall term, Lang and the EDGE team collaborated with Co-operative Education, the Centre for Career Action, Health, ENVS and UWaterloo Housing to pilot the skills identification and articulation workshop. The workshop aims to help students identify the practical and transferable skills that are gained from the inside of the classroom. From there, the workshop gives students the tools to best communicate their skills to prospective employers.
“This workshop helps to demystify this idea of a skills gap and suggests that the gap is really a communication gap. Students do have the necessary skills that employers are looking for, but they simply have difficulty communicating them to others,” explained Lang. “Although the ability to effectively articulate one’s talents is a life skill that takes continual practice, it has been encouraging to see students become more confident in their abilities after a short one-to-two-hour workshop!”
Lang is looking forward to launching EDGE. “We’re in a place where we can now start to operationalize the academic certificate program. A key focus for me is to connect across campus to ensure that EDGE communication is strong and that faculty and staff have a working knowledge of the program as we approach the launch in the fall of 2017,” said Lang.
To learn more about EDGE, please visit the program’s official website. Wondering what career development workshops are offered to co-operative education track students and traditional track students? Visit the CCA website for a list of options and dates.
