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.
时间管理和组织能力
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
如果你想在任何方面取得成功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.
Financial Literacy Workshops
Being a student is expensive and learning to manage to manage your money can be challenging! We’ve partnered with the Canadian Foundation of Economic Education (CFEE) and the National Bank to bring you a series of workshops to help you understand how to manage your money better.
Each of these financial literacy workshops cover a different topic to help you manage your money better and set goals for your financial future. You’ll be entered to win a Tim Hortons gift card for each workshop you attend, just fill out the pre and post surveys to be eligible. New expanded content has been designed based on GBC students' feedback so make sure you attend!
Note:Fall 2023 workshop series registration will be posted by September 5th.
Living a Financially Healthy Life
Join us to learn how you can make more informed decisions about your purchases, create a budget to help reduce your financial stress, and to increase your savings. The goal of this workshop is to help you develop a healthy attitude towards managing your money as a student and beyond. Take control of your money by setting financial goals and learn a simple budgeting process.
A Newcomer's Guide to Canadian Finances
搬到一个新的国家,开始你的生活re can be a stressful experience. Thankfully, you don’t have to go through it alone. Join us to look at some of the specifics of life in Canada, like costs, banking and credit, and the income and personal tax systems. Learn from the experience of other newcomers to Canada, and the things they wish they knew when first arriving including considerations when renting, and scams to watch out for.
How to Pay for School
Develop a better understanding on various programs available to help you pay for your education, including scholarships and bursaries, loans, and government programs, and learn important details about taking on and repaying government student loans, and the impact of being a student on your credit score. Plan for your future by thinking ahead, so you can get ahead.
How to Manage Debt and Credit
Debt and credit can be powerful tools, but only if used properly. Join us to learn ways to manage general debt, including deciding when it’s worth taking the debt in the first place; how to effectively manage a credit card; and why your credit score is so important for your future. We’ll help you understand and navigate the ever-expanding world of borrowing, how to manage general debt, and the difference between “good” and “bad” debt.
Getting Started with Investing
Gain foundational skills to allow you to invest with confidence. Investing may sound like an activity for the wealthy, but it plays an important role in your financial journey at all levels of income. Join us to learn about why having an investors mindset for finances is important, the main asset classes available, and the accounts that can protect your investments from taxes. Developing investment habits early will make a big difference in your long-term financial health. Investing is not a get rich quick scheme, it’s a way of putting your money to work for you! Arm yourself with the tools and knowledge to invest effectively and with confidence for your future.
Building an Investment Portfolio
Coming out of this workshop you will be much more comfortable managing your investment risks, be able to analyze and understand the potential value of the common stock of a company you choose to invest in and know about some alternative investment opportunities. There are a lot of layers and complexity to investing and this workshop will provide you the knowledge to invest for the long-term by applying techniques like dollar cost averaging and diversification to your portfolio. Learn the important metrics to research before investing in a company for the long-term as well as some additional ways to diversify and enhance your risk-adjusted returns.
Investing in Alternative Asset Classes
In the world of investments, there is a lot more available than just the “standard”. Alternative investments are items and asset classes that offer unique properties that, when added to a diversified portfolio, can offer additional balance, or even growth opportunities. Join us to learn what alternative investments are, the risk/return profiles of some alternative asset classes and dig into the opportunities and concerns of cryptocurrency. Learn what alternative investments are, and how they behave compared to the standard market; the risk/return profile of some different alternative asset classes, including commodities, private capital, and derivatives. Sometimes the perfect portfolio balance requires thinking outside the box — just be sure to do your research first.
Understanding Personal Income Taxes
Expand your understanding of Canada’s tax system and how to minimize your taxes as a student with tax deductions/credits, tax efficient government programs, and how different sources of investment income are taxed quite differently. Find out how taxes will impact your finances as you start your career and making more money. Taxes are a way of life but understanding how they work can lead to a great return on your investment (of time) and help you minimize the impact on your financial well-being.
Preparing for the Future of Work and Your Career
The world is changing. Join us to examine these changes, how they’re affecting workplaces, and some of the skills you can work on to stay in high demand. Don’t just embrace the future, help make it. Explore the transformation that is occurring in the workplace and the skills you will need to succeed in your career. You will learn how to look for the impact of these changes in your chosen field and anticipate what the future holds for the industry; how workplace and employee dynamics are being redesigned; and ways to highlight and improve the skills that will keep you in demand for years to come.
Buying Your First Home
Home ownership is a significant investment and can signal the beginning of a new stage of life for many Canadians. Join us to look at the pros and cons of home ownership, the steps of the home buying process, and some of the government programs available to help along the way. It’s never too early to start thinking about whether buying a house is right for you.
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
- 国际学生也应该检查他们的斯图dy 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.
联系我们!
- Questions or concerns? Contact the Student Life team atorientation@georgebrown.ca.
- VisitAsk George Brownfor frequently asked questions.
