Making sure you persist in your academic career and gain the right skills is part of your journey at the college. We strive to ensure that you have all the supports you need as you move through your semester, graduation, and into the workforce. This set of content addresses those essential skills that you need to be successful at the college and in your career to ensure you maximize your efforts.
Your To Do List:
- Sign up for workshops on soft skill development topics each semester
- Connect with your Career Advisor and plan out your career goals
- Sign up for industry events and build your network
- Connect with GBC's alumni network when you prepare to graduate
Skills for Success Workshops
Students graduating from college must be ready for a fast paced, uncertain and turbulent labour market. As the employment landscape continues to change, there is a greater priority for soft skills that enhance your ability to perform the tasks of your specific job and work effectively with others.
This series of workshops has been created to support your development of key soft skills to support you on your personal and academic journey, and are skills that employers are looking for. Take a look at each of the topics below and sign up for live workshops each semester on these topics.
Read on to learn about more resources to assist throughout your college journey. New dates are posted each term. Fall 2023 events will begin the second week of September!
How College Works
Learning to navigate the college environment can be challenging when you need to figure out where to go and who to connect with, but knowing how to do this is critical to your academic, personal, and career success.
We'll cover what George Brown looks like, it's academic centres and schools, who to reach out to for support, your course outlines, and what you can do to ensure your success.
Teamwork: Practical Tips & Tricks
Let’s face it, teamwork can be challenging! You may find is stressful especially when your grades are at stake because the quality of the work produced is dependent on the performance of your team members. As stressful as teamwork can be, learning to collaborate with others is an essential skill not only at college but also in the workplace. Join us to learn how we can help you understand and work more effectively in teams.
Time Management & Organizational Skills
Managing multiple priorities and deadlines can be a daunting task, yet it is a skill that we all must learn and continuously fine tune to be able to achieve our goals and maximize our efforts.
We'll share tools and tips for you to help you organize your tasks and overcome your procrastination and discuss different academic and personal strategies you can do to help you stay on top of it all.
Navigating D2L Brightspace & StuView
Learning to navigate key college platforms will help you maximize your efforts and set you up for success. This session will take a deeper dive into three of these platforms, D2L Brightspace and StuView, and we'll guide you through using the tools you need to succeed each semester as you navigate through your academic journey.
Building Your Personal Brand
This session is designed to help you get started with your academic and professional journey and get you in the right mindset to succeed by thinking of your personal and professional brand. We'll chat about starting at college and setting yourself up for success, key steps to maximizing your efforts and gaining confidence along the way, how you present yourself in various online settings, an introduction to networking, and some of our tips to make the most of everything you do on your journey.
Setting Goals That Work For You
If you want to succeed in any aspect of your life, you will need to establish goals. Goals are the roadmap to your success because they provide you with the focus and direction to effectively navigate and take control of your life. Goal setting is a powerful process that helps you to think about what you want your ideal future to look like and to identify and implement the necessary steps to turn your vision into reality.
Presentation Skills
Standing up in front of a group can be stressful and overwhelming but it's a skill we all must conquer to help us succeed in our personal and professional aspirations. This session is designed to help you get started and help you build confidence when presenting to your classmates, your colleagues, or even your friends. We'll help you understand the importance of practice and preparation, provide foundational tools to help develop your style, and give you tips to engage your audience through storytelling.
Planning For Your Career
If you haven’t already, make sure to connect with your Career Advisor. They offer a wealth of knowledge on your industry and have great advice and connections with partners across the city and the globe! You can book one-on-one career advising appointment to explore your options, talk about placement opportunities, fine tune your interview skills, or to start planning your strategy as you prepare to graduate and start looking for work.
Make sure to take advantage of the many workshops, networking events, mock interviews, and online career resources through GBCareers. Career Peer Coaches (CPC) are available to assist you with your career journey! CPCs can support you with your resume, cover letter, basic job search strategies, reviewing your Linkedin profile, and interview prep! And don't forget, you will continue to have access to these resources for a full year after you graduate from GBC!
Preparing To Graduate
Are you graduating at the end of this semester? There are few things you should do to ensure you’re on the right track and have ticked all your boxes. We’ve compiled a quick checklist of what you need to do and provided some quick links to ensure you are ready to graduate.
Check that you have all the credits and courses required to graduate
- Apply to graduate before the deadline
- Pay any outstanding fees including tuition and library fees, as you will not be able to graduate until these are cleared. Visit your StuView to check for any outstanding balances.
- Make sure your personal information is up to date in StuView, including the proper spelling of your first and last name, and mailing address
- International Students should also check their study permit and passport expiration dates. Post-Graduation Work Permits require that these remain valid until after you have graduated.
- Book your graduation photos through the Student Association
- RSVP and attend your convocation in June
GBC Alumni Network
George Brown alumni make incredible contributions to companies, communities and individuals every day. You will become an important member of a network of George Brown graduates that is more than 240,000 strong and growing every year.
Take advantage of networking events and opportunities, and numerous privileges as a part of our GBC grad network.
Contact Us!
- Questions or concerns? Contact the Student Life team at orientation@georgebrown.ca.
- Visit Ask George Brown for frequently asked questions.