Mastery in Motion: Embracing Lifelong Learning Through Continuous Upskilling 

I was so ready to start my first role as a software developer at a manufacturing company after college. I was hired as the first female member of the software development team. It took me three months to land that job, and the opportunity may not have presented itself except for a government funding program that incentivized companies to hire new grad women in STEM roles. 

Jump forward many years and no one could have told me then what I would be doing today and the upskilling path that I would be taking to get here. 

Early Days of My Learning Path 

I was only in my new software development role for two months and along came a new programming language that I didn’t know. Our dev team was small, so I took it upon myself to take a night class at a college so I could come up to speed faster. I really stumbled through that experience on my own. I had to reach out to a college located in another city because the local university where I was working didn’t offer the continuing education course I was looking for. The university wanted me to register for an entire degree program. Once I found a college offering a night class for the course that was applicable, the registration process was still paper based. I had to drive to the college to drop off the paper registration form. 

Over my two years with the manufacturing company, I was provided with on-the-job opportunities by my manager and other colleagues if I expressed interest in learning new programming technologies and more about the business itself. Back then though, a lot of training was supported by reading manuals and attending technical association in-person presentations. Our small and mighty team worked together to share the reading load and attend presentations. I believe that first job helped springboard my desire of continuous learning. 

Joining a Company That Understood the ROI of Upskilling 

Fast forward to 1989 when I joined a large insurance company that believed in continuously upskilling its employees. They wanted lifers—they knew that the longer an employee stayed with them, the investment in employer-sponsored education would continuously contribute to the company’s ROI for productivity, revenue as well as support a positive company culture focused on an individual’s growth within their own team or across teams.  

Given the volume of employees, many training sessions were held onsite through one training agency or purchased computer-based training packages. While there were challenges with accessing training at certain times due to the limited choice of training delivery providers, I appreciated the opportunity to have access to both technical and business training. In addition, supportive managers helped enable me to move from a software developer position to technical team leadership and back to software development.  

I then made the decision to switch gears and move into project management full time. The company supported my efforts to obtain my project management professional (PMP) certification by providing subsidies for my PMP training.   

Where Am I Now? 

Before joining SkillsWave, I worked for D2L, where our SkillsWave product suite was born. As an early adopter of the SkillsWave catalogue of courses, each D2L employee had a budget to spend each fiscal year to take courses that were of interest and relevant to their professional growth. I took my time to find courses that would fit my schedule and be relevant to my current and future job aspirations. Near the end of 2023, I started looking for an instructor-led course that would help me build up my PMP credit units (since I need to keep up 60 units every three years). I also wanted to rapidly improve my knowledge of AI and large learning models (LLMs).    

The SkillsWave catalogue helped me navigate and select both upskilling topics quickly, which was important as I was coming up to the end of the current fiscal year. Using single-sign on, I submitted a registration request via the SkillsWave catalogue for a fully online, instructor-led ITIL Foundations 4.0 course from Learning Tree International that was exam certification eligible. I had two paid learning days included as part of my education-as-a-benefit, so I only had to use one personal day to complete the three-day course (with night-time homework/reading). I signed up, was accepted and was in the next offering of the course in less than three weeks.  

In the meantime, I also signed up for an LLM course offered by University of Waterloo (WATSPEED) that started the following month and fit my schedule perfectly. Each instructor-led session in the LLM course was 1.5 hours every Wednesday over lunch which was easy to block in my calendar and work around my regular workday. Thanks to the SkillsWave platform, I had the chance to learn about LLMs from a well-known researcher, Dr. Jimmy Lin, professor of computer science and the co-director of the AI Institute at the University of Waterloo. 

While taking two courses and writing an online exam in the same three months took some personal and work time coordination, I am pleased to state I passed both courses with flying colours. This just-in-time learning has certainly come in handy with my new role as Head of Operations and Project Management. I’m looking forward to continuing my learning journey, whether that be with self-paced or instructor-led business or technical courses, through the SkillsWave platform. 

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