Northern College is looking to elevate the credentials of its welding techonology students… by offering a three-year applied degree over a diploma.
Vice-President Academic Aaron Klooster days the current course content is already at the same level as other applied degrees.
“And of course these advanced diplomas were created before applied degrees were really being discussed at Ontario colleges,” Klooster notes. “This is, I think, just the next evolutionary step in our welding program at Kirkland Lake.”
If granted permission for the degree program, Northern would still offer one- and two-year welding diplomas.
Dean of trades, technology and apprenticeships David Francis says the advantage of the degree would be more science behind welding and associated trades.
“This would be things like metallurgy, looking at the constituent parts of different metals as they’re joined,” says Francis, “and this allows people to kind of have a bit of a leg up if they wanted to, any kind of aspect of innovation, applied research, perhaps over time a supervisory, more science work that would come from the degree structure.”
Francis adds that a degree holder could pursue graduate education as well.