Give your career a boost
With over 580 courses to choose from among the stackable certificates offered by NTU’s Centre for Professional and Continuing Education (PaCE@NTU), alumni can upskill to boost their employability.
By Janis Zhang
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering alumnus Omar Ahmad Bin Mohamed Noh (Class of 2010) (left photo) who graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in Environmental Engineering, made a career switch to civil engineering after facing difficulties in securing a job in the environment sector.
Now a Resident Engineer at a civil engineering firm, Omar aspires to become registered as a Professional Engineer (Civil) with the Professional Engineers Board (PEB). To achieve this goal, he enrolled on courses stackable to a Specialist Certificate in Civil Infrastructure, which he believes will help him with his PEB registration. “PaCE@NTU offers courses and certifications that are industry-relevant and can help working adults acquire in-demand skillsets so they can be more competitive in the workforce. Some credit-bearing courses are even stackable to a Master’s degree from NTU,” said Omar.
Stackable Certificates courses are credit-bearing courses taken from both NTU’s undergraduate and postgraduate full degree programmes, designed to help working adults acquire in-demand knowledge and hone their skills in an area of specialisation. These courses are stackable towards the relevant certificate(s), such as the Specialist Certificates, Graduate Certificates and FlexiMasters, subject to prevailing rules and regulations. FlexiMasters have half the academic load of a Master’s programme. Learners can opt to transfer the completed courses to a relevant NTU Master’s programme if they wish to pursue an NTU Master’s degree.
Marcus Chan (right photo), a Class of 2020 School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering alumnus, decided to pursue a Graduate Certificate in Fintech Essentials while working as a process engineer. He later transited to the role of an algorithmic engineer at a tech start-up, where he is actively applying what he learned from the courses of the graduate certificate.
“The knowledge and applications of different mathematical concepts and codes from the courses have broadened my perspective on how algorithms are being used today and the versatility of machine learning. Time and project management are also valuable skills that I have acquired through my lifelong learning journey,” he said.
A management associate at an information and communications technology company, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering alumnus Khor Kai Xiang (Class of 2020) (left photo) saw the need to invest in lifelong learning during the pandemic. This led him to take up courses stackable to an NTU FlexiMasters in Instructional Design (E-Learning). His internship and final year project during his undergraduate studies, where he was involved in creating educational packages in the form of videos and games for technical engineers and students, sparked his interest in instructional design. “This FlexiMasters has enabled me to identify performance gaps among my colleagues or customers and create an instructional outline that proposes solutions to their problems. I can value-add by providing engaging resources for them to understand technical jargon as well as instructional resources to effectively use my company’s products and solutions,” Kai Xiang said.
Alumni have the flexibility to pursue courses from stackable certificates according to a schedule that suits their needs. Most of the courses are supported by SkillsFuture with funding available. Alumni may also use their NTU Alumni Course Credits (worth up to S$3,200) to offset some of the fees for these courses. Like Marcus and Kai Xiang, Class of 2020 and 2021 alumni can utilise their Bonus Alumni Course Credits – that will expire on 30 June 2022 and 2023 respectively – to offset the full course fees.
The registration for Academic Year 2022/2023 Semester 1’s stackable certificates courses is closing on 30 June. Courses for FlexiMasters have different application timelines. Visit the website to find out more. For more enquiries, please email [email protected].