Member-only story
Hi, as I mentioned in the previous story, I am writing about how I get an IT job in Canada after college as a foreigner. This topic consists of six stories (each term) at Algonquin College — Computer Programmer (4 study terms + 2 co-op terms), and this is the first story.
So, here we are!
Semester 1 → Semester 2 → Semester 3 → Co-op 1 → Co-op 2 → Semester 4
College selection is very important and you want to pick a right school for you. I assume that you are not in Canada yet so you don’t have any clue which colleges are good for you. To figure this out, you will need to spend quite a lot of time online.
Not like others, luckily, I was familiar with most of colleges here because I’ve been to Canada before and was working as a marketer & consultant at study-abroad agency, especially dealing with Canadian schools in South Korea for few years. Therefore, I was very clear what I want. Since I already have a Bachelor’s degree, I was only looking for two years program with co-op. Why co-op? I will explain more about why co-op is important in the 4th story — co-op term 1.
If you had searched some schools, you have noticed that there aren’t many colleges providing two years program with co-op in IT. Unfortunately, most of them with co-op are at least over three years. So, here’s a list of colleges that have two years program with co-op.
- Algonquin College, Ottawa, ON
- BCIT, Vancouver, BC
- Georgian College, Barrie, ON
Before we get into it, I want to make it clear that those schools are all public and have a good reputation. Each school has pros and cons depending on what you consider. After much consideration, I decided to go to Algonquin College. Again, choice is yours.
I started on May, 2017 and completed on April, 2019 without any break. It was total 6 semesters including two co-ops. Then, I landed a job in Cisco as a Software Engineer on May, 2019. About the job(s), I will talk about more details later.
