(ethereal music)
- We're the only Faculty in Ontario
that combines traditional liberal arts
with professional studies.
Here, you can combine any number of programs
as double majors or majors and minors.
Interested in philosophy and administrative studies?
You can do that here.
- Nowhere else in the GTA
can you find a more diverse and inclusive faculty
LA&PS's culture is varied and vibrant.
Our students are engaged in important equity work
and community engagement.
- The opportunities for academic and personal growth
are amassed at LA&PS.
As an International student,
I've found a home among my peers.
I have taken part in clubs,
research projects and important outreach activities.
- LA&PS has many opportunities
for internships and work placements
to help enhance your in-class learning.
I've been working as
McLaughlin College's peer network coordinator
and it's preparing me for what comes after graduation.
- Our faculty is at the forefront of institutional change.
This year I was appointed as special advisor
on LA&PS's anti-black racism strategy.
So we can begin meaningful and hard conversations
about equity and anti-black racism in our communities.
- As a proud York graduate.
I credit my professors and peers for an excellent education.
I gained a sense of self and a lifelong love of learning.
- Hi everyone and thank you for joining us
for our Liberal Arts and Professional Studies program chat.
Today we're gonna talk about one
of our very special programs here in the faculty,
which is our Information Technology program.
Before we get started talking about the program,
I do wanna say a few words about the land
upon which York University is located.
This meeting is virtual,
and because of that we are not all actually gathered
in the same space.
York's land acknowledgement might not represent
the territory that you are currently on,
and I would ask that if this is the case
that you each take the responsibility
to acknowledge the traditional territory
that you're on and its current treaty holders.
As a member of the York University community,
I recognize that many Indigenous nations
have long standing relationships
with the territories upon
which York University campuses are located
that precede the establishment of York University.
York University acknowledges its presence
on the traditional territory of many Indigenous nations.
The area known as Tkaronto
has been taken care of by the Anishinabek Nation,
the Haudenosaunee Confederacy,
the Huron-Wendat and the Metis.
It is now home to many Indigenous peoples.
We acknowledge the current treaty holders,
the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
This territory is subject of the Dish
with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant
and agreement to peaceably share and care
for the Great Lakes region.
Now I'd like to introduce a very special guest
we have with us today,
a professor from our information technology program,
Professor Liaskos. Good afternoon professor.
- Good afternoon.
Thank you very much for the introduction
and thank you all for joining.
My name is Sotirios Liaskos.
I'm the Director of the School of Information Technology
and I'm very happy present to you
some key information about
the School of Information Technology
at the York University and its programs.
I'm wondering if at this point I could share my slides?
Okay. So before I begin telling you about the school,
I want to talk a bit about information technology
and why you should study information technology.
First of all,
there is literally nothing that we do in our daily lives
that does not involve information technology.
We browse and buy a product online.
We pay by cards for almost anything.
We take courses online.
We read books and watch films using computers.
We communicate and make friends,
call taxis, order food, play music,
take pictures, find objects, navigate our cities,
all that just by using
a small mobile information technology, our cell phones.
This is the information technology
that we see because we use it every day.
But what is really important
is that there is vast space information technologies
that is hidden from us.
We go to the grocery store to buy our favorite produce,
all we see is the produce.
We cannot see that the network of producers and suppliers
from all over the world deploy
complex information technologies
to organize and coordinate production transportation,
order the produce from the place it is produced
and it goes to our shopping cart.
When we enter a large commercial building
or other structure,
we only think of the great numbers of professionals,
contractors and materials
that were involved in its construction.
Information Technology is likely to have played
the leading role in allowing all these people
to finish the project correctly and in time.
The same way we take an airplane to go somewhere.
The very complex network of people, vehicles and devices
have worked together to ensure that ourselves
and our items arrive safe at the destination.
There are numerous other examples,
retail, finance, oil and gas, transportation,
telecommunications, education, government service,
pretty much any industry you can think of today
is based on IT.
It does not merely use IT,
it is literally based on IT, on information technology.
What is interesting is that this idea is hidden from us.
We don't see it and therefore
we cannot appreciate its complexity.
The question is how such gigantic
and complex IT systems can come to existence.
What kind of skills professionals
are needed in order to design, develop
and maintain those systems
because clearly these people need
to understand the technologies,
but they also need to understand
the highly complex organizational problems
that these technologies are supposed to solve.
But it turns out that this is difficult
to be an expert in both,
an expert in both knowing the technologies
and knowing how the technologies apply in practice.
So this is a domain.
Note, there are two classes of professionals in IT,
they're professional that focus on the manufacturing
of hardware and software audits.
These are typically computer scientists and engineers.
They know everything about electronics,
algorithms, theories of computation and programming
and technical aspects like that.
But the other professional class in IT
is equally necessary and even more populous.
These are professionals that focus
on understanding IT problems that organizations face
and designing solutions to these problems.
These are people who diagnose and solve business problems.
People who have a broad knowledge
of information technologies
and are able to choose and adopt
the ones that fit their client's needs.
So it is becoming clear that there's a big difference
between being a technically oriented IT professional
and being an application oriented IT professional.
The technically oriented ones
have a deep knowledge of the technologies
and how they can be developed.
They can be very proficient
in how the technologies work,
but they do not need to spend time understanding
how the techniques apply in practice.
Application oriented IT professionals on the other hand
have a strong awareness of the technological capabilities
and limitations and combine it
with a solid understanding of organizations
and how these organizations work.
These professionals are trained to communicate
with business stakeholders,
understand their needs,
device a solution based on existing technologies
then coordinate the implementation of the solution.
For such professionals,
business communication and methodological skills
are as important as technical skills.
This second class of professionals
is where the School of Information Technology
at York University focuses.
Building the next generation
of versatile business-aware IT professionals.
We say versatile because IT professionals
must have the ability to quickly adopt
to various domains and industries
and play a variety of roles.
And we say business-aware
because such professionals know
about computers and software
as much as they know about how organizations
and businesses work.
So our programs are being designed
with these skills in mind.
Before I describe to you the programs,
let me say a few words about the school.
The School of Information Technology
was established in 1999.
And there's now an amalgamation of various IT programs
that exist in the different campuses and faculties.
We have more than 1,200 students
and offer more than seven undergraduate programs
plus a Master's in Information Systems and Technology.
We're also proud to have one of the most diverse
and international group of professors.
Our professors come from all over the world
and they are some of the best scientists
in the country in areas such as business analysis,
data management, data analytics,
information retrieval, cloud computing, cybersecurity,
decision support and many other areas.
Let us look at the main programs that we offer.
We have two main honors programs,
the Bachelor of Arts, which I'll refer to us BA
and the Bachelor of Commerce,
which I'll referred to us Bcom.
The BA program focuses on applied technical skills
as well as methodological and management skills.
The BCom program adds substantial knowledge
from the business domain such as accounting and marketing.
The BCom is offered in collaboration
with the School of Administrative Studies
here at York University.
The BA comes with two versions,
the specialized BA ITEC is strict in the sense
that it forces students to take
as many IT courses as possible
limiting the electives and the courses outside the ITEC
so you cannot take many of those outside courses.
It is geared towards robustness that way.
The greatest design ITEC specialized
shows that the graduate is guaranteed
to have taken a list of important IT courses.
The non-specialized BA on the other hand
offers flexibility allowing the students
to take courses from other areas
and create their own combinations.
Regardless of their specific subtype,
both BA programs have two goals.
Firstly, to allow students acquire
the necessary technical skills
for developing and monitoring IT solutions
for organizations.
And secondly, to allow students to learn
how to systematically organize IT development
and management efforts.
So the focus is on the technology and the methodology.
This becomes clear when we look at the courses.
You can see here, the courses in the BA programs,
I have classified them into core technical courses
and core methodology courses.
The core technical courses, these technologies,
there are three introductory Java programming courses,
two courses on web development.
There are also courses on Database Systems Development
as well as data analytics and data analysis.
And finally,
there are some computer systems and networks courses.
You find such courses in computer science programs
but there are important differences.
For example, quali database course and computer science,
teaches you how
database management systems are structured.
In our program we focus on the design of a database
for a specific domain or client
and how we can write programs to manipulate data.
Regarding the computer science program
teaches theory of programming languages
or theory of computation and algorithms,
in ITEC we focus on programming skills
that are necessary
for solving common business problems, right
So these are the technical courses
and then there are also the core methodology courses.
These are courses that teach us
how we organize the effort of introducing
and maintaining technology to an organization.
This piece is normally not found
in a computer science program
and the core courses are such as systems analysis,
IT project management and IT risk management,
architecture and design,
well that you can find in an engineering program,
requirements management, business project management system,
enterprise architecture, IT strategy.
These analysis design and management courses
are vital for developing a solid IT skillset
as an IT professional.
The BCom program goes one step further.
In addition to essential technical methodological skills,
BCom graduates have a deeper
and broader understanding of the business
and commerce domain.
Further in the third year,
BCom students choose one of the three streams,
Business Systems Analysis
for those looking for a career
as an information technology analyst,
systems analyst, information technology consultant.
Students who pick E-commerce developments on the other hand,
learn how to design and develop consumer
and business to business electronic commerce systems
so this is the most technical stream.
And finally Information Technology Auditing and Assurance
is for those who want to become
information system audit control and security professional.
This is modeled after the requirements
of the information systems audit
and control association, the ISACA, right
So they got a modern curriculum
and you know, based on this model curriculum
this stream has been developed.
As we said, BCom adds business courses in the mix.
These include accounting, marketing,
organizational behavior and human resources management
as well as other auditing related courses
and business systems analysis related courses.
Taking one of the two honors programs,
that is BA or BCom are not the only choices
in the School of Information Technology.
Particularly useful is taking a major in ITEC
and a minor in some other discipline or vice versa.
In this case, most of your courses will be in the major
and some of the courses will be in the minor.
There's also the possibility of double major
in which case the courses are split half and half.
So nothing works without information technology these days.
I hope I convinced you before.
So even if we decide to study something outside IT,
I think it would be much more competitive
if we incorporate IT in some way.
And here in that slide, you can see some examples.
You may wonder, for example why one wants to combine,
I dunno, philosophy or political science with IT,
but you will be amazed at how many people
with non-IT backgrounds such as philosophy
and political science graduates
are successfully in IT leadership positions.
This is because they mastered the art
of effective and accurate communication phenomena,
ideas and visions and the ability to understand
the social and conceptual complexities
within modern organizations.
These are important skills for the modern IT professional
of the type we're talking in this presentation.
So if you're interested in IT,
don't be afraid to consider a minor in philosophy
or similar discipline if this is your inclination.
I want now to tell you about
the technology internship program.
This is one of the most important parts of our program.
Students who reach the third year of their studies
and have a good academic record
are eligible to join the technology internship program,
TIP, they call it.
This is a placement in the company
that can last 3, 4, 6, 12 or more months.
Companies include major Canadian banks,
IT providers such as IBM Marine,
major utilities like Telecom and electrical companies,
municipalities and many others.
Through Technology Internship Program,
students can try different companies and roles,
develop technical skills, meet new people
and start building their professional networks.
Students get paid during the internship.
That's important.
It's particularly useful for international students
who can use it to get some valuable Canadian experience
and jumpstart their career.
Many of the internship students
are actually hired full time at the end of the internship.
You might be interested to know
what jobs our graduates get once they graduate.
This workload is based on data from our alumni
from some years ago.
You can say that many of our graduates
become business analysts.
That is people who develop information systems
in large organizations, analyze them,
develop, design and solve problems
using IT in large organizations.
Others report IT specialist, IT manager,
IT consultant, software engineer
and a world of other positions.
Note that most of these positions
are from recent graduates so therefore
they tend to be entry level jobs
in this particular workload.
And what companies employ our graduates?
As we know Toronto
has a very large banking sector
and banks have in turn very large information systems
where they're constantly in the expansion and maintenance
so many of our graduates find employment
in one of Canada's major banks.
IT providers or consulting firms or utility companies
are also workload destinations for our graduates.
We also know of alumni who become entrepreneurs,
start their own companies that is.
Before I close this presentation,
I'd like to discuss job prospects in the IT field.
When wondering if there are enough IT jobs,
please consider that nothing
in the world works without IT anymore.
There's a study from ICTC,
the Information Communication Technologies Council
of Canada that predicts that more than 147,000 new positions
will be needed in Canada in the digital economy in general.
I won't worry therefore about finding a job that much
given that, of course, that you are well-prepared
for that market.
IT jobs also tend to be very well paying.
I invite you to look at online studies and surveys,
Glassdoor.com which is a job search website
that lists software development manager,
enterprise architects to be
among the 10 highest-paid jobs
together with doctors and the like.
An American study,
computer and information systems managers
are listed as one of the 20 occupations
with the highest median annual pay.
This places them in the same list
with surgeons, judges and so on.
So the field seems quite secure and rewarding.
Above all, I think the field of IT
is very exciting, fun and empowering.
It is amazing how useful you can be to people
and what wonderful things you can create
if you have a good grasp of information technology.
In IT your ability to create new possibilities
is bound less.
And myself after more than 25 years in the field,
I still can't get bored with IT
because there's always something new to explore and learn
and there are always new and exciting ways
to be creative and useful.
Here's the URL of the School of Information Technology,
where you can get more information about our school
and our programs and our courses
and how to contact us.
And with this,
I would like to thank you
for attending this presentation
and looking forward to seeing you in class.
- That was amazing. Thank you so much Professor Liaskos
for that comprehensive view
of our information technology program here
at York University.
If you have any questions at home,
you can reach out to the department at the links provided
or you can reach out to us directly at goyork@yorku.ca.
Don't forget that you can follow us on Twitter
and Instagram @yorkulaps.
And applications are now open
so don't hesitate to come and join our team
and our classes here at the university.
From all of us here at the university
to all of you who are watching at home,
please be well, stay safe and we'll see you in September.
Take care.