From School to University

Focus on IT Program: from School into University

Ilya Stepanov, First year Ryerson University student

Everyone is excited about high school graduation, and I wasn’t an exception. Some people were very eager to get out, some wanted to stay. I was mostly neutral. Graduating was just another step in my life, into university. The transition was not easy, there were a lot of differences between university and high school, the set up mostly; some of them are very appealing, some are not. Since the beginning of grade 12, my teachers and guidance councilors were, as I felt, trying to scare me out of university, while at the same time preparing me for it. While being in grade 12, of course it felt terrible, but as I am finishing my first year at Ryerson, I am starting to feel that it was actually a very helpful and useful experience.

My program at Ryerson is called Business Management. After finishing the first year, you can major in accounting, ITM (information technology management), business law, finance, and other business related fields. First year courses are the same for all majors, one of which is ITM. People who major in ITM become managers of IT departments in various businesses. There are no prerequisites that are needed to be taken in high school, but the Focus on IT (FIT)[1] program helped a lot. When I was in grade 12, I was very sure that I would go into the line of business someday, and I took a lot of business courses such as accounting and economics. Upon picking my courses, I had an open spot left, and I decided to give CISCO CCNA a shot, which is a networking course that develops knowledge of networks, its components, both hardware and software and its applications. If I was to combine CISCO, all computer science courses and accounting, that are the components of the FIT, I would get ITM. Of course the course entirely revolves around technology. Coming with a FIT background, ITM was a piece of cake for me. With combined knowledge of business related material, ITM became one of the most appealing courses on my schedule.

When I first entered into the ITM classroom, what surprised me was that the room was set up exactly the same as my CISCO classroom  at Northview Heights Secondary School. Every student had access to a computer, and two computers were connected to a single router for network simulation. As I began the course and started reading the first chapter, I couldn’t help but notice that the format it was presented was almost identical to the CCNA course I took. The pace of the subject was a bit faster, but it was a lot easier for me to adjust to it because the material was very familiar. A lot of students without background knowledge in computers or networks were completely lost in the course and barely passed. Having Northview prepare me was the key to my success in my first semester of studies and I am very grateful for that.

The way the material was presented also closely resembled the way it was taught in my high school FIT courses: one lecture per week and all the course related material was on the university website, including practice quizzes and other helpful tools.

The course covered various aspects of how IT helps businesses operate more effectively. We have covered WAN, LAN components, printer sharing, basic computer components and how to effectively manage all the IT resources. My final project was a case study in which I was supposed to come up with a virtual network and create a spreadsheet application that could be shared on a network to record transactions for a travel company, and also to use it to calculate costs of travel based on various criteria, like food coverage, rooming, etc. It certainly gave a lot of room for creativity and it was a very exciting experience.

Business today cannot operate effectively without IT and there will always be a high demand of highly skilled professionals with IT knowledge. When my ITM course was over, our professor called us “business knowledge technicians” because we were skilled in both IT and all the business material related to it. Having FIT at my side ensured my success in becoming a business knowledge technician, and I am very grateful for that. Personally, I would like to thank Northview and my IT instructor Dr. Noukhovitch for helping me succeed in my studies.