Bridging to Green Careers

Program Description

Turn your international training in engineering and life sciences into a successful career in Canada.

Bridging to Green Careers is a program designed to help internationally trained immigrants develop the skills needed for a career in the Canadian environmental sector. Through eight months of intensive environmental training, occupation-specific language classes and employment counseling, you will gain the skills needed to be successful in the environmental sector of the Canadian marketplace.

With a focus on two streams, the Built Environment and the Natural Environment, students will gain functional and professional knowledge that will leave them better prepared for the workplace.

In partnership with the Government of Ontario, this program runs for 30 hours per week and helps professionals develop in-depth knowledge of the green sector. Graduates will receive a Certificate from Seneca College.

The Importance of Learning Skills

Student success in college requires well developed learning skills (such as being able to work independently, participate in a team, be well-organized, develop good work habits, and show initiative). These skills are as important as prior academic achievement. While it is expected that applicants would have developed these skills through previous education and life experiences, Seneca offers support to assist students with further development of these important skills.

Eligibility

In order to be eligible, participants must:

• Be able to work in Canada
• Be a skilled immigrant living in Canada for less than five years
• Be unemployed and lacking in professional Canadian experience in their field of training
• Have a language level CLB 8+ or higher
• Have a professional and academic background in engineering or life sciences
• Have their international academic and professional credentials evaluated
• Complete an application and submit a current resume
• Attend an information session
• Successfully complete a panel interview

The Built Environment

The increasing awareness of the energy and environmental implications of our economy and lifestyles has created a demand for professional practitioners who can assist businesses and individuals in reducing their environmental impact, carbon footprint, and energy use and costs. Seneca has created two leading-edge graduate certificate programs to address this need – one focused on the Built Environment, and the other on the Natural Environment.

The Built Environment is the prime target for achieving significant CO2 reductions and controlling operating costs for business. Increasingly complex building designs and building control systems create the need for a new breed of professional graduate who can examine building structures and systems, create operating strategies for energy demand and supply, minimize operating costs and environment/energy impacts, and work within a building sciences engineering team to achieve new levels of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Your Career: The Built Environment

Graduates of this advanced program are competent specialists who will

• Have a thorough understanding of the design of intelligent buildings to meet or exceed current energy and environmental standards
• Have a complete understanding of the impact and integration of the various systems that condition our buildings
• Apply state-of-the-art comprehensive integrated building design tools
• Apply intelligent and integrated systems throughout the building’s life cycle
• Perform detailed energy audits and facility condition assessments to identify energy and cost saving initiatives
• Use comprehensive simulation tools to model building performance, and calculate energy savings and environmental benefits from savings initiatives
• Understand the emerging marketplace for carbon trading, environmental impact verification
• Create a more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable built environment.

The Natural Environment

The Natural Environment practitioner stream prepares individuals to be part of a team concerned with the complex inter-relationship between the natural world and the increasing human impact on its multiple attributes.

A sustainable and integrated natural environment within modern urban regions requires practitioners with a strong foundation in sample acquisition planning, data collection, analytical skills to determine results, and the talent to report on their findings. In so doing they contribute to the broader practice of municipal and environmental engineering by providing the objective and empirical knowledge required for the consideration of alternative strategies.

Your Career: The Natural Environment

Graduates are competent specialists who contribute to the life cycle success of human mediated natural elements by:

• Engaging in water-related, soil, and geological conditions studies,
• Collecting, sampling, measuring, and analyzing natural materials,
• Presenting findings in aural and written formal reports,
• Enhancing as part of a team the performance of water and land resources,
• Engaging in the natural world in a variety of urban and regional settings,
• Contributing to the beauty and property value of the natural environment,
• Building a healthy and safer world for present and future generations.

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