Diploma in Occupational Therapist Assistant / Physiotherapist Assistant

at Algonquin College - Ottawa Campus Canada

The one-year Financial Services Ontario College Graduate Certificate program prepares you for a challenging and rewarding career in the customer sales and service areas of:

• Banking
• Insurance
• Financial planning
• Wealth management

In this program, you build on your pre-existing business skills, financial knowledge and professional experience. You are introduced to financial products and services and financial advising. You learn how to create and present financial plans. As well, you practise collecting and analyzing client information and providing financial advice based on that information.

You also participate in work-integrated learning. This gives you the opportunity to practise your skills and knowledge in a realistic financial services workplace context.

Algonquin College partners with The Canadian Securities Institute (CSI) to offer the Financial Services Graduate Certificate program, which is an approved educational path to Personal Financial Planner®(PFP®) designation and prepares you to write the Applied Financial Planning Certification examination, which is necessary to obtain the PFP® designation.

Specialize with a challenging and rewarding career in finance

Earn a flexible diploma that shows you are aware of all areas of business, and that you also have specialized education in finance. Finance is one of seven majors available to Business Administration students. This three-year Ontario College Advanced Diploma program starts with three semesters learning a variety of essential business skills before ultimately deciding on a Major.

The Business Administration - Finance program prepares you to meet the high proficiency standards needed to complete professional designations and licensing courses in the financial services industry.

Learn how to become a strategic, skilled financial expert whom individuals and businesses will trust to create and analyze financial plans. You learn from experienced faculty who provide you with an education based on all areas of finance, including:

• Financial analysis and decision-making
• Customer service, sales and marketing financial products and services
• Wealth management
• Retirement and tax planning
• Insurance and estate planning 

Develop an understanding of the operations and importance of financial services. Use a hands-on approach to explore topics such as:

• The time value of money
• calculating return on investment and tax treatment of returns
• The relationship between risk and return
• Canadian financial institutions and regulators
• Financial planning steps and the components of a financial plan 

Discover a career supporting children, families and communities

The Bachelor of Early Learning and Community Development (Honours) program prepares you to work with children and families in both the community development and educational sectors and provides you with a variety of transferable skills.

There is an increasing awareness of the importance of early learning in our society. Similarly, there is an ongoing need to develop and support early learning opportunities for children and their families within a variety of settings. The early learning sector is evolving to address these changes. This program is ideal for those who want to play a role in these developments.

This program combines theory and practice, giving you the skills and knowledge you need for engaging with communities, families and children to create and implement community and school based programs that support early learning and development.

Throughout the program, you have three varied field placements within both community and school settings. These give you the chance to apply your skills to real-world settings. With field placements, applied learning and a semester-long work term, graduates are ready for employment in the community development and education sectors.

Graduates may find work in:

• Community health agencies
• Kindergartens
• Early learning programs
• Child and family centres
• Provincial government
• Non-governmental agencies addressing the needs of families and children

The Technical Writer Ontario College Graduate Certificate program provides you with the skills and training needed for a career in technical communication. Throughout this one-year program, you create different types of workplace documents to help users enjoy all features of a product, service or information. In particular, you learn to:

• Research and analyze technical material
• Connect with an intended audience
• Use specialized tools to author documents
• Manage multiple projects to meet the goals of a group
• Create structured documents that cater to different user tasks

These skills are so highly prized in the workplace that you can choose to work in either the public or the private sector, and in a freelance, part-time or full-time capacity.

The Technical Writer program will teach you how to create different kinds of online and print documents such as instruction sets, training materials, user manuals, white papers, proposals, online help, instructional videos and podcasts.

Through a combination of real-world learning, group projects, and collaborative learning activities, you can confidently apply these skills in all areas of industry including manufacturing, health and medicine, government, high-tech and private training institutions.

This one-year Design foundation Ontario College Certificate allows you to develop fundamental design skills and to explore a range of design-related disciplines, in order to discover where your strengths and interests lie.

Throughout the program, you develop foundational knowledge and skills used in a variety of design elements such as:

• Principles of design and layout
• Typography
• Drawing and sketching
• Perspective
• Colour theory
• 3D structure
• Time management
• Web design
• Industry-standard software.

You explore your own aptitudes and interests through research and a speaker series of professionals, to help determine which area of design best suits you. Your work accumulates into a portfolio that represents your best design and artwork, which can be used to apply for future programs of study. An annual showcase provides an opportunity to exhibit your portfolio and interact with industry professionals, peers and the community.

Using a combination of applied learning and theory, this one-year Baking and Pastry Arts Ontario College Certificate program gives you a strong foundation in baking and pastry arts. Gain hands-on experience in baking, cake decorating and shop management in our industry-standard baking and pastry labs - learning from professional chefs.

As a student, you get to show your creative side in the labs. You learn essential techniques such as mixing dough, weighing ingredients, preparing batters and icings, and cake decorating. To expand your job options, you learn skills related to the daily operation of a bakery, such as inventory control and food cost percentages.

At the end of the program, you apply your skills and knowledge in the real world with a 40-hour field industry placement. You also participate in a variety of events and baking competitions within the community, so that upon graduation, you have career-ready skills and relevant industry contacts.

The two-year Early Childhood Education Ontario College Diploma program prepares you to become an educator of children in a variety of early learning settings. Gain the knowledge and skills necessary to work with families and other professionals to support children`s learning and development.

This program provides you with the ability to create, implement and assess play-based curricula while building stimulating child-centred environments. Benefit from both theoretical and hands-on learning opportunities. You have three field placements during the program that focus on children from birth to age 12. These real-world experiences allow you to integrate theory with professional practice in early learning programs.

You assist in providing guidance to children while planning, implementing and evaluating programs. Through your placements, you gain valuable hands-on skills and experience to help you understand the diverse roles, settings, and responsibilities of an Early Childhood Educator.

Learning Outcomes
The graduate has reliably demonstrated the ability to:

• Create learning contexts to enable, build and maintain caring, responsive relationships in partnerships with children, families and communities that value and respect social, cultural and linguistic diversity including Indigenous peoples’ worldviews and Francophone identity.
• Co-create, facilitate and reflect upon inquiry and play-based early years and child care programs and pedagogical approaches to support children’s learning, holistic development and well-being following children’s capabilities, interests, ideas and experiences.
• Co-design and maintain inclusive early learning environments to value and support equitable, accessible and meaningful learning opportunities for all children, their families and communities in a range of early years and child care settings.
• Collaborate with children, families, colleagues, agencies and community partners to create, maintain, evaluate and promote safe and healthy early learning environments to support independence, reasonable risk-taking and healthy development and well-being.
• Use observation strategies to identify children’s strengths and challenges and to ascertain when children and families might benefit from additional support or community resources.
• Use professional communication in interactions with children, families, colleagues, employers, the regulatory body, government authorities and children’s service agencies to meet legal and ethical standards of the early years sector.
• Act in accordance with relevant legislation, regulations, College of Early Childhood Educators Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, agency policies and procedures and principles of evidence-informed practice and reflect upon their impact on one’s own role in early years and child care settings.
• Identify, report and document when a child is in a situation of perceived risk for, or actual neglect or abuse, in accordance with legislation, the College of Early Childhood Educators Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, policies and procedures.
• Create and engage in partnerships with families, communities, colleagues, inter-disciplinary professionals, authorities and child service agencies to advocate for quality early years and child care programs and services.
• Engage in reflective practice and continuous professional learning in accordance with principles of lifelong learning, evidence-informed practices in the early years sector and requirements of the College of Early Childhood Educators.
• Identify and apply discipline-specific practices that contribute to the local and global community through social responsibility, economic commitment an environmental stewardship.

Build your architectural career within the construction industry

The two-year Architectural Technician Ontario College Diploma program teaches you the skills and techniques to enter a career in the architecture and construction fields.

Your professors are industry professionals who provide you with a learning experience from the construction industry and the architectural profession, enabling you to be successful in your academic and professional ventures.

Begin the program with a focus on residential construction, and progress to studying commercial construction, as defined in the Ontario Building Code. Develop skills related to all facets of building construction, including design and technical resolution with the integration of building and material detailing.

As a student in this program, you have the opportunity to study and learn in a variety of practical topics, using both applied and theoretical learning, and a project-based, integrated studies approach. Courses include:

• Working Drawings
• Methods and Materials of Construction
• Codes and Standards
• AutoCAD
• Revit
• Visual Communications
• Design
• Environmental Systems

The three-year Computer Engineering Technology - Computing Science Ontario College Advanced Diploma program prepares you for an information technology (IT) career in the private or public sectors. You gain the knowledge and skills to use a broad range of IT-based analytical thinking and problem-solving skills in support of the day-to-day operation of an enterprise`s software systems or in the development of new systems.

Learn a variety of programming languages (Java, C#, C++, C, and others) and operating systems (Windows, Unix/Linux, and QNX). In addition, you study the development tools and debugging techniques used to design, code and test integrated and/or embedded applications and software systems.

In your final year, you work in teams on sponsored real-world projects to develop a comprehensive application as part of the software engineering portion of the program. You also have the opportunity to select an elective course from an approved list, in areas that include graphics/multimedia, advanced database programming, android, business programming (Cobol), security and advanced web programming.

The majority of the program consists of courses in systems programming, software development, testing and maintenance. The balance of the curriculum consists of courses in technical communications skills (both oral and written), mathematics and general education electives.

Students also have the option to gain real-world experience through a paid co-operative education (co-op) work term (see Additional Information for more details). Please note that places in the co-op version of the program are subject to availability. Students who elect to apply to the non co-op version of the program may not have the opportunity to transfer to the co-op version at a later date.

Graduates may find employment as systems, integration, and applications programmers and/or testers, and as customer service representatives providing training and product support to clients of high technology corporations.

• Graduates may also pursue careers in such diverse areas as:
• Game and multimedia development
• GUI (graphical user interface) development
• IT communications, IT security, real-time and database systems
• Web-based applications
• Technical roles in all levels of government (federal, provincial, and municipal)

Interactive Media Design is a two year Ontario College Diploma program designed to prepare you for a variety of careers in the digital media industry. Web-design and programming, as well as video and motion graphic skills, are in demand in all employment sectors. You explore the primary elements of media project planning and development with equal importance given to the creative and the technical aspects. This balanced learning experience prepares graduates to be generalists in the media industry, meaning you can jump into a wide variety of roles as you begin your careers.

Strong emphasis is placed on hands-on media production through courses in computer-based web design and programming, as well as video and motion graphics. Through a number of program-specific elective courses, you can focus your path towards specializing as a video producer or a web developer, or you can choose to remain as a generalist, depending on your interests. You plan and execute individual and team-based projects under the guidance of a faculty, industry experts in the media field. You gain practical experience working with live clients through applied projects. You navigate these learning opportunities with the operating system of your choice, such as Apple OS X, Windows or other platforms.

This industry-driven program provides you with the diverse skillset that makes you adaptable in today`s dynamic job market across all sectors. Graduates may find employment in a wide variety of fields utilizing their skills in dynamic media development, web design and programming, photography, videography, motion graphics, project management, UX design, graphic design and content management. Other opportunities involve start-up businesses and a wide variety of alternate professional fields.

Students also have the option to gain real-world experience through a paid co-operative education (co-op) work term (see Additional Information for more details). Please note that places in the co-op version of the program are subject to availability. Students who elect to apply to the non co-op version of the program may not have the opportunity to transfer to the co-op version at a later date.