Advanced Diploma in Mechanical Engineering Technology

at Humber College North Campus Canada

Humber’s Electrical Engineering Technician – Control Systems diploma program focuses on three major concentrations in electrical engineering:

• Power industry
• Process instrumentation
• Programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

Our courses are designed in collaboration with an industry advisory panel, ensuring you learn current and relevant material. The program blends classroom theory with laboratory work on subjects such as electric devices and circuits, digital and programming fundamentals, power generation and distribution, electrical computer-aided design and drafting (CADD), electrical code, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and technical communications.

Complex and challenging assignments prepare you for the realities of a control systems and electrical engineering career. Jump-start your career in the power industry, process instrumentation field as a control specialist or working with programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Our graduates can find work as technicians – designing, maintaining, servicing or selling automated industrial, electrical machines, electrical control, power and process instrumentation systems and equipment. Some employers of our graduates include ABB Inc., Aztec Electrical Supply, Canada Bread, City of Brampton, Street Lighting Department, Eastern Power Limited, Enersource Hydro Mississauga, Siemens Building Technologies Inc., Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation.

Humber’s Bachelor of Engineering program begins with a common platform of first year courses which provide foundational engineering knowledge and skills. Following the first year, the curriculum branches into three different discipline areas: Information Systems Engineering, Mechatronics, and The Built Environment.  

The Bachelor of Engineering - Information Systems Engineering discipline prepares you for an interdisciplinary field of study that encompasses rapidly changing, evolving and converging areas of computer, software, networking, telecommunications, mobile applications, internet and cyber security. Following the first year, the curriculum covers the core courses in various subjects such as digital systems, operating systems, embedded systems, communication engineering, software engineering, mobile applications and systems, and more. In the third year, the program branches out to two specializations, Internet of Things (IoT), and Data Network and Security, with eight specialization courses in each. 

The program also provides project-based learning, experiential learning with hands-on and practical training, applied research opportunities, and work-integrated learning activities. Students will have opportunities to solve real-world problems while developing professional skills such as teamwork, communication, presentation and project management. 

Work Placement
A co-op work program (three consecutive work terms, 420 hour each) ensures that work-integrated learning experiences are woven into the curriculum. This provides students with a contextual understanding of the industry and specific sectors they are training for, as well as recognition of the importance of hands-on experience.

Industrial designers design products for consumers.  Examples include sports footwear, headphones, wearables and automobiles. Graduates of the program are in high demand for the practical skills gained through the program’s hands-on learning environment. These skills include sketching, digital graphic rendering, model-making and computer-aided design (CAD).  The program is project driven, and many of the design projects will involve industry collaboration to ensure real-world relevance.

Students elect a design specialization in Year 3 in one of:

• Automotive design
• Product design or
• Interaction design

Automotive designers design the appearance (styling) of motor vehicles including automobiles, motorcycles and off-road vehicles. Humber is the only industrial design program in Canada that offers an automotive design specialization. 
In product design, there is more emphasis on the method of finding a solution to a user’s problem in order to make doing a task easier or make the user experience with the product more satisfying.
Interaction design is a new offering in the program which recognizes that more and more physical products are integrating a digital component, including touch screens or voice activation.

Learning Outcomes

• Upon successful completion of the program, a graduate will:
  • Meet the professional criteria as established by the ACIDO Charter (The Association of Chartered Industrial Designers of Ontario), demonstrating core competencies in skills, knowledge and design methodology in industrial design meeting.
  • Design, document and communicate high quality interior design propositions of varying size, scope and complexity employing principles of evidence-based design methodology.
  • Explain how products work; how products can be made to work better for people; what makes a product useful, usable, and desirable; and how products are manufactured and serviced.
  • Select and employ appropriate visual languages to investigate, analyze, interpret, develop and articulate ideas for two and three-dimensional projects.
  • Produce sophisticated design proposals emphasizing three-dimensional quality of space achieved through architectural detailing.
  • Communicate concepts and requirements to other designers and colleagues who work with them, and to clients and employers. This need to communicate draws upon: verbal and written forms, two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, and levels of detailing ranging from sketching to engineering drawings.
  • Employ computer-aided drafting (CAD), computer-aided industrial design (CAID), and appropriate 2D and 3D graphic software to create graphic presentations and marketing materials.
  • Integrate sustainable practices in the design process and demonstrate leadership by educating users in these principles.
  • Analyze the complexity of forces – economic, political, physiological, sociological and technological – which influence the design of the physical environment.
  • Incorporate principles of user-centered design, human factors and ergonomics in design solutions.
  • Select appropriate methods and materials to achieve the technical functionality and aesthetically pleasing built environment.
  • Select the appropriate process(es) and materials for manufacture for a given production volume.
  • Support the marketing function with design strategy supported by graphic/3D materials.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between human behaviour and the built environment and the implications in preparing design solutions.
  • Assess the implications for interior design presented by key developments in current and emerging materials, media and technologies and in interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary design practice.
  • Source information on copyright, mechanical patents, and protection of intellectual property, as applied and practiced in the professional field of industrial design.
  • Develop a business case for and present design solutions to a variety of stakeholder in keeping with professional standards and practices.
  • Employ effective and professional communication skills and techniques to interact, negotiate and undertake collaborative efforts including meaningful discussion of one’s work in an open studio environment, with audiences, clients, markets, end-users and team members.
  • Work collaboratively with clients to develop an understanding of the product requirements, leading to a design brief.
  • Confidently employ appropriate professional accountability, personal and business ethics demonstrating competency of industry practices.
  • Work in a team effectively, utilizing skills of collaboration, negotiation, compromise and conflict resolution.
  • Employ appropriate conventions of measurement, scale, site measuring, drafting and volumetric manipulation through a variety of manual and digital modeling techniques.
  • Design to exceed the minimum standards of applicable laws, codes, regulations, and practices that protect the health, safety and welfare of the public.
  • Speak clearly and persuasively for design concepts and resources.
  • Plan and manage projects, demonstrate good time management skills, be a self-starter, and show resourcefulness.
  • Employ both convergent and divergent thinking in the process of observation, investigation, speculative enquiry, ideation, rationalization and implementation of design solutions.
  • Source, navigate, select, retrieve, evaluate, manipulate and manage information from a variety of sources, both primary and secondary.
  • Conduct themselves with honesty and integrity, demonstrating professional accountability.
  • Employ a variety of methods of design to develop design solutions.
  • Analyze information and experiences in order to articulate an academically structured, sustained and well-supported argument supporting a design issue or creative interior design solution.
  • Identify and analyze the customer needs of an identified target market.
  • Find relevant information that informs the design process, employing a number of techniques and skills including: observation, expert interviews, market information, and various digital search techniques.
  • Employ a variety of ideation techniques, including: sketching, brainstorming, rapid sketching, analogy, metaphors, symbols, and form exploration/sketch modeling
  • Develop a design solution which meets users’ needs, derived from concept development, product aesthetics (form, color, texture, haptics) that reflects market trends, human factors (including ergonomics, user interaction, and safety), model making, materials and technology, sustainable design, manufacturing feasibility and design validation, and cost.
  • Demonstrate good problem solving abilities.
  • Develop creative and innovative solutions.
  • Demonstrate a strong aesthetic sensibility and style, resulting in design solutions with visual appeal.
  • Articulate a well-supported argument justifying a design concept or creative design solution.
  • Articulate the difference and relationship between a product’s form and function and the emotional and experiential needs it fulfills.
  • Articulate design strategy in the context of business strategy.

Work Placement

• This program includes a work placement of 420 hours in the summer between Year three and four.

Humber’s award-winning Multimedia Design and Development diploma program offers the opportunity to participate in an extensive multimedia design education where you’ll build a range of interactive digital media production skills including web design, mobile interface design, experience design, motion graphics, 2D animation, web coding, streaming, user testing, video and sound editing, user interface prototyping, digital storytelling, and interactive design. Through this hands-on learning process, you will develop the fundamental creative and technical multimedia design and development capabilities needed to pursue employment in videography, motion graphics, web design and interactive content development.

Multimedia Design and Development is one of the three programs within our interaction and design common platform cluster. The first semester of this program is shared with the three-year Web Design and Interactive Media program, and the three-year Graphic Design program. This offers you exposure to the different areas of programming, common elements of design and creative thinking, and collaborative work with students studying to work in complementary career fields. Greater exposure to the ever-evolving exciting world of design and development will allow you to investigate the edges of this area of study, and then you will confirm your focus prior to your second semester of study. 

Under the guidance of experienced and knowledgeable professors, you’ll learn on and become experienced with industry-standard software such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Adobe Brackets, Illustrator, After Effects, Audition, Adobe Animate, Final Cut Pro and Premiere. Web technologies such as HTML5, Extensible Markup Language (XML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS3), JavaScript, jQuery and Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) and MySQL are employed in hands-on learning situations in our applied teaching environment with relevant industry projects.

You will cultivate important collaborative teamwork and project management skills through group assignments both within this program, and through interdisciplinary work with students in sister programs. This will prepare you for collaborative projects in the field and help you gain real-world perspective on the nature of multimedia work. You will be prepared to pursue new media opportunities by developing a comprehensive portfolio that you can present to potential employers or clients, and have exposure to the entrepreneurial opportunities open to professionals in this rich field. Students in this program will also build real-world user experience skills through the use of our unique, state-of-the-art mobile usability lab and through a work placement.

Work Placement

• Students will participate in a mandatory work placement which takes place in the last semester of study.

Humber’s Business Administration – Accounting advanced diploma program covers a number of areas including accounting theory, procedures and best practices. Detailed instruction is provided in bookkeeping, auditing, taxation, business law, information systems, finance and management. You’ll gain hands-on experience in industry-standard software such as Profile (personal and corporate tax), Access, Excel, SAGE 50 Accounting (formerly known as Simply Accounting) and Accpac Plus in our Accounting Centre. Learn the inner workings of the accounting field from expert faculty who will teach you key concepts in accounting and taxation related to buying, selling, financing and investing transactions.

Humber’s Interior Decorating diploma program combines essential creative and practical elements with insights into current design trends.

• Cultivate your creative abilities using the principles and elements of design.
• Hone your artistic talent and develop your professional skills to launch your career.
• Learn how to design, plan, detail and create unique spatial concepts for residential environments as an interior decorator.
• Explore and ideate clients’ needs and passions, then use them to transform their living/work space.
• Discover and implement unique trends for kitchen and bath solutions

You will learn from practising professional experts in our design studios. The studio curriculum provides hands-on experience and training using market-specific materials and trends. Guest speakers, trade shows, field trips and out-of-country adventure opportunities await you. Using the latest in technology software programs, you will explore the world of design and discover furniture, finishes, textiles, objects d’art and essential elements that evolve into unique and extraordinary living spaces.

Our program will complement your creative and technical expertise with essential business training in how to run your own enterprise and manage your own projects. You will learn how to understand specifications and how to communicate design ideas effectively to a real client. Round out your interior decorating education with instruction in mechanical, electrical, plumbing services and building methods including residential finishes, computer drafting, sketching interiors and digital communications.

The interior decorating program offers an optional work placement to all students who choose to enrol in this opportunity. The work placement requirement is a minimum of 240 hours, following Semester 2. Students who enrol in January have a slightly modified option to gain the mandatory hours.

Interior decorators work with clients and consult on programming through to installation phases. Components selection encompasses style, colour schemes, space plan layouts, elevations perspective sketches, lighting, furniture, floor finishes, wall finishes, kitchen and bathroom design, accessories, and many more details. Interior decorators can provide conceptual sketches, computer-aided design and drafting (CADD), generated working drawings, and other design-related essentials to their clients including product specification, as well as cost estimates. Decorators can also choose from other career avenues including window display, event planning, décor magazines, television work, home staging and much more. Humber graduates have gone on to become interior decorating magazine editors-in-chief, featured magazine interior decorators, TV personalities with their own show, guest TV decorators, newspaper feature article leaders, interior decorating business owners, event planners, managers of decorating retail stores, design consultants and buyers to name but a few.

Humber’s Tourism – Travel Services Management diploma program is ideal for those who possess a genuine love of travel, exploration and adventure. The program will provide you with the experience you need to excel in this exciting industry including:

• Tour operations
• Travel agencies
• Tourist boards
• Adventure and eco travel
• Cruise lines, airlines
• Voluntourism
• Educational tour companies
• Sales and marketing

In order to best prepare for this dynamic industry, you will have several opportunities to travel internationally on both short duration trips and for full semesters abroad. In addition, several courses include local travel opportunities that give you hands-on experiences in a variety of tourism and travel products and adventures. In the Trip Planning course, you will plan and execute a travel experience. The program also includes extensive training with the most recognized software systems in the tourism industry.

Fast-track program – Students that start in January will complete the program on a fast-track schedule. The first semester (January to April) is immediately followed by the second semester (May to August), resulting in a short summer break. Students enter Semester 3 in September, completing the two-year program in just 16 months.

Students will apply their skills and knowledge in the fourth semester in a seven-week (32 hours per week) unpaid work placement. Placement opportunities include positions in retail travel agencies, tour operators and destination management companies. You will practise and develop skills selling tourism products, as well as gain introductions to operations, sales and marketing.

Our program is the launching pad to an exciting career in one of the world’s largest, most dynamic industries. Establish your career in:

• Tourism product sales and marketing
• Customer service
• Operations
• Wholesale and retail reservations
• Product planning and niche tourism
• Tour conducting

In this industry, you will have the opportunity to work in Canadian and international markets with tour operators, travel agencies, airlines, destination management companies and other travel suppliers.

Humber’s Millwright Techniques certificate program is designed to help introduce prospective millwrights to the trade. The program aims to facilitate employment or provide the required components to enter into a millwright apprenticeship program, giving practical experience with trade regulations and practices. You will gain a solid understanding of the various technical theory and elements of the millwright trade. There will be a significant practical component to the program, and you will learn valuable skills by using the latest industry software programs and working in fully equipped up-to-date labs and shops. At Humber, skilled instructors highlight current trends within the industry and strive to duplicate situations that apprentices and skilled tradespeople will see in their everyday working life.
Canada currently faces a critical shortage of skilled workers. Skilled tradespeople will be increasingly in demand because of the rapid pace of technological changes and as current workers in the field begin to retire. According to the Working in Canada Report (Government of Canada), employment opportunities for licensed millwrights will be steady. Graduates of this program will find a range of employment opportunities through millwright apprenticeship programs, as well as positions associated with construction and industry work, metal fabrication, and green energy. There are many opportunities for advancement within this career path from supervisory to management positions.

Humber’s Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Technician diploma program prepares you for a career as a technician capable of designing, installing and servicing many different types of energy systems. As you progress through the program, you will become familiar with the design, installation and service techniques of heating and air conditioning systems in residential and small commercial buildings. As well, you will learn to size, select and maintain equipment for building comfort according to various industry standards.
Today’s residential central air conditioning and heating systems are more energy efficient than those that were typically installed in the past. As this sector continues to address Canadians’ concerns about rising energy prices and the environment, there will be ongoing opportunities for you to work with design contractors in installing, servicing and retrofitting heating, ventilation and air conditioning and refrigeration (HRAC) equipment. As well, you could choose to work as a sales representative, specifications writer or service representative. With further experience, you could become an estimator, working with plans and specifications to determine material and labour requirements in preparation of contract bids.

Humber’s Sport Management advanced diploma program prepares you to manage the business of sport. You will develop a thorough knowledge of the structure and functionality of the Canadian sport industry including specific responsibilities and governance structure of organizations; rules and regulations governing sport; coaching standards; tournament hosting and scheduling; and sport sponsorship development. You will also learn the practical, organizational, business, human resources and administrative skills needed to pursue a career in the industry.

A three-day leadership camp at the OELC (Ontario Educational Leadership Centre) helps build communication and leadership skills while guest speakers, practical training and field trips provide added benefits in preparing you for the workplace.

Courses are designed with industry collaboration, ensuring the program is current and relevant. You will learn from full-time professors, managers and directors of sport organizations. Classes are diverse and include guest speakers from organizations such as Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment, Tennis Canada, the Ontario Basketball Association and various games organizing committees. The program also includes field trips and practical training.

Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the program, a graduate will:

• Assess the socio-cultural parameters that influence sport.
• Identify and work within legal, ethical and moral issues related to sport.
• Complete all work within the governance of agencies, authorities, organizational structure, and functions of governing bodies.
• Provide leadership in a variety of settings.
• Apply, analyze and communicate concepts of sport management.
• Articulate and track changes in marketing concepts, the uniqueness of sport marketing, and sport consumerism.
• Use appropriate information technology including a variety of software programs relevant to the business world.
• Apply, analyze and communicate accounting, economics and finance concepts pertinent to the operation of any organization.
• Apply knowledge of the HR function to the operation of a sport organization.
• Develop customer service strategies to meet the needs of internal and external customers.
• Plan, design and deliver sport and recreation programs.

Work Placement

• Our program includes two work placements in Semesters 5 and 6. Placements occur across industry sectors including professional sport associations, community and amateur sport governing bodies, and private sector sport organizations. These placements provide valuable experience and industry contacts.