Entire sectors changing best practices overnight, artificial intelligence relegating industries to a bygone age, or buzzwords that made little sense even two weeks ago.
The careers of tomorrow can be daunting at best.
But it needn’t be so.
BCIT’s School of Business + Media offers training in accounting, finance and insurance that future-proofs graduates while instilling within them the rigorous industry standards of the day.
It’s primary selling point?
A 95-plus per cent placement rate for graduates and 1.5 jobs for every graduate.
“Our grads have a breadth of knowledge that will carry them, but they also have the ability to adapt, analyze and learn more, so that they know that they can stay at the forefront of their industry,” says Kristine Thompson, BCIT’s associate dean of accounting, finance and insurance.
Inevitably, the biggest topic for Thompson’s students is artificial intelligence (AI) and how it’s impacting the workplace of tomorrow. Sure, some data collection jobs of 30 years ago are no longer, and as Thompson points out, “debits are still debits, credits are still credits and that hasn't changed in 100 years.”
There are, however, endless opportunities to grow, adapt and advance.
To that end, BCIT students are trained on the contemporary best practices and software of the day -- Power BI and Tableau – but more importantly, they are taught facets of human nuance that AI simply can’t replace.
“The number one thing we're hearing from the firms that are hiring our students, and the number one thing that I saw throughout my career, was that soft skills, people skills and the ability to build relationships are the most important things,” she says.
That combination of the practical and personal is helping BCIT students navigate perhaps the most in-demand job of 2025, data analytics. It’s a field that’s saving companies time and money in which Thompson’s students are learning from a curriculum shaped by industry leaders and taught by instructors still working in those relevant fields.
“We get feedback from [industry leaders] and we ask, ‘What are your hiring needs this year? What skills are you seeing that we're not providing so that we can change that? What's become more relevant? What should we consider phasing out?” Thompson says. “Those conversations are being had on a regular cycle several times each year.”
Beyond Power BI and Tableau, students are versed in data modelling and interpreting, advanced Excel activities, generating precise reports from numerous data sets and virtually anything else needed in the fields of underwriting, accounting, taxation and audit, financial planning, claims adjustment and more.
“These are the skills that are in demand, and those are the types of jobs you're going to get,” Thompson says. “Both accounting and insurance are suffering from a severe shortage of talent right now. We like to say in our insurance program that there's roughly one-and-a-half jobs for every graduate we have. If you graduate from our program, you will get a job.”
For more information on BCIT’s School of Business + Media, visit www.bcit.ca/business-media.
