Colleges, universities & institutes

Colleges, universities and institutes all put out calendars that give a lot of general information about admission policies, courses, student services, financial aid, just about everything. Most schools will mail the calendar to you for five to ten dollars. The Open Learning Agency will send theirs for free. These calendars are often available through libraries. If you spend some time browsing through the table of contents of a couple of different calendars you will pick up a lot of information about how the school is organized and where you might start asking questions.

If you don't see information in the table of contents relating to women, disabled people and native people, check the index at the back of the calendar.

Prior Learning Assessment
As an increasing number of experienced working people are going back to school for further training, there is a growing movement to get universities and colleges to recognize training and skills that students have already acquired either on the job or in their communities.

Some schools will waive academic requirements to allow work-experienced people to take courses. This exemption is usually granted by the head of a department to an individual. The actual process of assigning academic value to both formal and non-formal learning is called Prior Learning Assessment.

At the moment, the only place in BC that does this is the Open Learning Agency (OLA) through their BC Educational Credit Bank. For a fee, the Educational Access staff will assess your background and help you choose the best route to earn credit.

OLA also offers a non-credit course called Portfolio Development Course (PORT 001). This course helps people document their learning in a form that can be submitted for assessment.

Once you know the diploma you want to work toward, if you have related experience in your background, call OLA at 431-3300 or toll free at 1-800- 663-9711 and ask to speak to someone about the BC Educational Credit Bank.

The trial run

When they decide to go back to school, many women do a trial run to make sure they can do it, and that they want to do it. Some women sign up for one course and see how that goes. Some women start by taking non-credit courses. These are courses which will not go on your academic record, so they do not affect your chances of getting into school. Some women audit credit courses, which means they take the courses, but do not write the exams. So they don't get credit and it doesn't go on their record.

An important difference between college and school board courses:
If you need upgrading in math, science, English, or social studies, but you're not sure if you'll be able to get through the course, it's often a good idea to take the course through your local school board.

Transcripts from the Ministry of Education only list courses you have completed, not courses you have failed or from which you have withdrawn. College courses, including courses from the Open Learning Agency, go on your transcript if you take them for credit. Not finishing these courses can hurt your chances of getting into other colleges or universities.

A word about transferring credits:
A good general rule is to always check with the program you want to get into to make sure they will recognize the courses you are taking somewhere else. For example, if you are aiming for the Renewable Resources Diploma at BCIT, check to see if they will accept a Math 11 course from the Vancouver School Board.