[Music] [Music] so we are we are at bcit with uh michael galley i introduced you in turkish of course um first let's uh introduce you what is it that you do at uh bcit great yes so again my name is michael galley i'm the director of international recruitment and admissions so my group uh we look after students from the point of first contact when they're first interested in studying abroad in canada um we'll tell them all about bcit and help them to decide if this is the right place for them to study then if they do decide to apply they'll apply again through their application will come through the regular stream at bcit but it will come through the international admissions so we have international admissions officers that are specially trained to do admissions for international students which is different from the canadian students very different from the canadian students and the admissions officers will assess their applications determine if they meet the requirements for the program and if they do they will accept them into the program at the point of the students starting the program at bcit that's the point where we release them and my colleague in the international student center will look after the students after they arrive at bcit so from the point they think about applying until the point they enter bcit that's where my my team looks after after that it's another group of international staff who look after them until they complete their studies at uct so i know that bcit has international students from all over the world right but i'm kind of curious like um from how many countries do all of these international students come uh from to bcit good question so uh before the pandemic we had 116 countries represented wow now we're down to about 110. so it's not bad went down a little bit and the total number before the pandemic was 6500 international students during the pandemic it went down to about 57 or 5900 and i think this year it'll probably go back up to close to where we were before so what about turkey like turkish students how many are there like currently at bcit good question at uh in the 2021 september 2021 intake from that point we have 36 students from turkey wow which again is not bad considering that we've just gone through two years of a pandemic i know i know like uh that's actually like a pretty good number but i want to ask this first because a lot of international students might wonder what is actually the difference between like the canadian colleges and the british columbia institute of technology we're kind of in the middle in between a research university and a community college so we overlap on both sides so bcit is focused primarily on employment so all of the programs you see if it's computer systems or business or engineering computing aviation they're all targeted at preparing students for postgraduate employment we do master's degrees but we also do certificates so it's a broad range of credentials what separates us from the universities we don't do research at the phd level but we do have applied research which is far which is very critical so research universities will do that conceptual level research bcit our research comes in at the point where the product is going to market and you want to do market research and you want to do prototyping and things like that that's where bcit really shines we're not a college because colleges are they tend to focus more on transferring students to universities or you know their credentials are lower level credentials you mentioned these at ubc before and it's an interesting fact more students come to bcit after they complete a ubc degree bcit students don't go to ubc in the same numbers it's funny but the reason is simple you can get a general education in a university and get your bachelor degree but to get a job you need a bcit credential this is what gets students jobs so those four-year degree graduates from ubc and the other universities they get a great general education but then they come to bcit not for a master's they come for the two-year diploma and that's canadian or international students right right actually i know that firsthand because back in 2005 i came from ubc to bcit and in my class back then we had domestic students from sfu from ubc and i was actually surprised i didn't know that back then and i was like really surprised that a lot of domestic students canadian students who graduated from ubc or sfu that they would come to bcit to get that hands-on education right so i guess that's like the main difference and there i want to ask this does bcit work with employers or like you know because these employers they're looking like you said you know for a bcit diploma or a certificate instead of a degree from ubc right so um what's the perception of these uh employers why is it for them so important that a student did go to bcit and had a hands-on education i love this question so part of our education model is to collaborate very closely with industry so businesses industries around vancouver we work we actually invite them to sit on our advisory committees every program at bct has an advisory committee the committee is vice presidents managers scientists engineers depending on the company but they come from different companies to sit on this advisory committee for whichever program they advise our faculty on what is changing in that industry and what do they expect our graduates to know when they graduate so if new technology is coming next year a year later they're able to tell us this we're able to incorporate that into our curriculum so we're always updating the curriculum making sure that we are giving the students the exact education that the employers are asking for we know this because the employers are telling us the employers love it because we're training the students with exactly the skills that they want they hire our graduates it is a great model it's very different from the university model where they're trying to lead industry with groundbreaking research which is great we need that if we don't have research then nothing progresses or moves forward but how many people do research yes how many people just want to go out and get a job and so our dean of international explains it like a pyramid at the bottom there's the most people who are needed by society to fill those jobs and those are at the diploma level we need less at the degree less at the masters and just a few at the phds right so that's why our model works so well for getting students to jobs and why employers understand it so well that is uh just brilliant i i wish that like you know a lot of uh countries would implement something like this it's actually a a model quite unique to bcit and there are many things that are unique about bcit it's very intensive so the students will do in a two-year program the same number of credits that they would do in a four-year program in other universities and that's because we don't want to reduce the amount of theory they get but we need to give them the practice so yeah it's a 50 50 theory and practice but we can't just cut the theory in half so we still have to do the same amount but then we add all that practice time yeah you're basically like you're ready to go that's exactly it they don't employers love the students because they don't need training yeah you know you can hire a graduate from a university and train them for six months you don't need to train them at least from if they're coming from bcit exactly bcit when you compare it with a lot of colleges it's actually really big could you like uh talk a little bit about that like the amount of campuses uh what type of programs how many programs does bcit offer and so on sure first again before covid we had 48 000 students um after covid it went down to 45 000. so a little bit of a job um 6500 international students again comprises about 15 actually of of all the programs that the international students can actually enter at uct because we have 300 programs but only half of them are available to international students so that means you have 150 choices which is quite a bit yes that's still a lot yeah we have five campuses the burnaby campus is the big main campus we have all the engineering programs business we have a brand new health science building architecture computing you name it we have it here but at the downtown campus we focus on technology i.t so it's most of the it programs are are delivered at the downtown technology hub we call it the aerospace campus is like an airport it has a huge hangar with a 737 airplane a sikorsky helicopter a set bombardier cj 1000 jet and about 25 other helicopters and airplanes in the hangar in the shops there are huge shops with 30 40 helicopter airplane engines the students will be in a classroom in the morning for three hours and then they will go for lunch they will put on the blue coveralls and then they go into the shop or the hangar for three hours so that really gives me the best visualization of a 50 50 program theory in the morning practice in the afternoon so the aerospace campus is an amazing it's amazing physical demonstration of that model then we have the anasaz island um center for motive power excellence this is where we do heavy duty truck technology it's a new program working on those big diesel trucks and farm and construction vehicles and that's a very specialized program it's a two year program students will come out with a great job great salary and their career will take off from that point wow then we have one more campus the marine campus on the north shore unfortunately we can't get international students into those programs because there are limitations by the government on who can work on the coastal waters right those are the five campuses um and they're all within about a half hour of each other but if you study at one campus you'll probably only study at that one campus you don't need to go from the aerospace to the burnaby campus or to the downtown campus you study only in one place right so like you said there are some programs that international students can apply to i know that for example in please correct me if i'm wrong like health studies like nursing for example right international students can't apply to those programs but you mentioned aerospace and trucking right what about those programs are international students eligible for those programs in fact in aircraft maintenance m-class engineering so this is the general maintenance of the airplanes the the turbine engines the reciprocating engines every part of the airplane we have four classes every year dedicated to international students so and there's only a maximum of 16 students per class so small teacher to student ratio which is great for the students they get lots of one-on-one instruction and and assistance from the teachers so that's 16 times four every year and we fill every one of those classes they're very popular aircraft maintenance engineering e-classes all the electronics and telecommunication systems on the airplanes international students can get into those there are two intakes per year there's also airport operations for people who want to manage airports gas turbine certificate so they specialize in just a gas turbine engine so all of those programs except international and heavy-duty truck technology also right now we have one class per year dedicated to international students wow that's just like um because i know for sure that um a lot of turkish students they don't know much about trades programs and that's what i'm like trying to do right you know let them know that there are programs like these at bcit in canada that they can actually think about and uh think about you know applying to these programs because um like most international students the most popular programs are usually like marketing business administration or supply chain management and i'm guessing that at bcit it's maybe currently like that but it might change in the future is that the same here at bcit 2 that international students are mostly interested in these types of programs so every year we have about a thousand seats available to international students overall and i would say about a third of them are just in the business area yeah so as you say you know marketing and human resource management business management business operations we have a great program in global trade transportation there's probably 25 different business programs and they are very popular and they all fill up so yeah very popular civil engineering mechanical engineering electrical engineering also very popular but the requirements to get in are are higher it's it's not difficult to get into a business program you need english ielts 6.5 and you need math from grade 11. that's it because you don't need physics and chemistry to do business you don't even need math to do marketing right yeah um or very not a very high level of math but if you're going to do an engineering program or architecture you need a higher level of math and physics and chemistry in a computing program like we're seeing here you probably only need english and math but the math will be higher than the business level of math well you basically uh already answered my my next question about requirements uh getting into bcit so um but uh in terms of language requirements uh does bcit also accept duolingo yes we accept duolingo officially for september 2022 but because it hasn't been deleted from our system yet we're still accepting it for january 2023 and i suspect it may go on further as well oh okay all right then and what about intakes um because like we know with colleges usually there are three to four intakes per year does bcit follow the same schedule not really so our model i should have mentioned this at the beginning but our model is a cohort model when you go to bcit you don't choose your classes you are given a schedule and it's a very intensive schedule and you must take all the courses in level one to go to level two to three to four so you can't start the program in january if everybody already started in september because you would be going into level two where everybody else started at level one you can get advanced placement by taking part-time courses to meet all of those level one courses but generally you have to start when your cohort starts okay so some programs do have a september and january intake some have a may intake but it's program by program and i would say probably 80 of the programs you have to start in september okay so now that we uh talked about the intakes and the the schedule um what about um like financial awards or like scholarships for international students unfortunately we don't have the entrance the scholarships for canadian or or international students it's just not in our budget there are financial awards that are given out after first year so to students going into year two they are eligible to receive these financial awards for the students with the best gpas in the program so they're limited okay well that's that's good to know talking about tuition though it is important to either yes please most programs at bcit are cost about 20 000 canadian dollars per year but when you calculate the value of that twenty thousand dollars you're doing you know double you're getting double the education so 110 120 140 credits for twenty thousand dollars it works out to about three a credit and if you're paying attention to the value of the education it's very high again compared to most institutions they may look cheaper but you're getting less for what you're paying for so i know many most colleges a two-year diploma will be 60 credits at bcit it's on average 120. so you're
getting double the education you're working twice as hard also it's not an easy school it's it's very focused and you know you have to work hard here exactly i know that i know that firsthand and so i know that the return on your investment is high like um um i didn't check uh but i would like to ask you like when i said like return on investment right once like bcit students they graduate right um what are the chances like you know they're gonna get a job like you know within a few weeks or within a few months 98 of our degree graduates will find a job within six months of graduating wow 98. now probably 60 70 percent will get a job within the first month or two months and then a lower percentage in the months that follow if you graduate with a diploma the numbers around 91 percent but it doesn't mean that 91 of the students find a job it means some of them don't go look for a job they go directly into the bachelor degree so you do a two-year diploma you can stop you can go out get a job you'll get a good job but some students want to do the full four years so they just go right into the bachelor degree and they finish the bachelor degree so that 91 is not really representative of how many students are getting a job because it's not taking into account the students who transition directly into the bachelor degree i would suspect it's probably closer to 95 96 who are actually looking for a job to find a job now that we're talking about jobs um i think this is also going to be like you know my last uh question is about co-ops right uh most of the programs at bcit i believe they offer like optional co-ops or maybe they are offering uh co-ops could you like give me more information about that sure co-ops are very specific with bcit it's usually a you know a particular term that's dedicated to a co-op or the students are expected to do it within a summer break where they do the co-op um but we have various kinds of work experiential opportunities for students so they may do practicum they may do co-op they may do internship there may be just a business development project or a capstone project where they have to go out into industry find a project so they're going to companies and they're trying to find a suitable project to wrap up what they have learned in their program so a great example is a group of mechanical engineering students um they went to a company in the vancouver area they asked them if they had a problem that the students could help them solve and sure enough they did they the students built they designed they built they programmed a machine a mechanical system to meet the needs of that company the company gave them maybe a thousand dollars for the for the materials um and at the end of the project they had experienced every step of the process of working as a mechanical engineer so they they negotiated with the company they they discovered the problem they designed a solution to the problem and they built it and i emphasized the building because our students here they get their hands dirty yeah they're mechanical engineers they're not sitting in a classroom designing and learning theory theory theory they're doing that but then they're actually doing the building so they're working with the big cnc machines all the metal bending machines and everything that you need to build a mechanical system they're hands-on in there so that's an example of a work experience that the students are having but it's kind of bridging between the company and at bcit because you know the facilities at bcit are so they're designed to imitate what students are going to experience when they work in their companies so all the tools all the equipment is going to be similar to what they're going to experience in wherever they go work in fact industry donates many of much of the equipment that we have because they want to make sure that we're teaching the students with the kind of equipment that they are going to use so their education is basically in a real life environment so they wouldn't be surprised once they graduate and go to the real employer the work space everything is like almost the same exactly okay perfect um you know what uh we're coming to the end of this interview michael is there like anything maybe you would like to uh add um at the end anything that maybe we didn't uh cover yeah i've worked at bcit for 15 years and from the beginning until now i'm a huge fan i'm a believer in the bcit model i i appreciate the need for the research that's done in universities it's very important but the world really this is not my quote somebody said this a very smart man said the world needs more vcit we need more institutions that provide the kind of hands-on real-life real work experiences that students will take into their careers and really bcit launches great careers for students it's intensive you work very hard but after two years or four years you're ready okay uh well um i am also a believer since i'm like i studied at bcit and i know how much hard work uh you put in here um thank you so much for making the time and telling our viewers all about bcit how actually what a great education you can receive here so uh this is the end thanks again so much for watching oh [Music] you
2022-03-28