Short Programs at McGill School of Continuing Studies

Course Description

Whether you have knowledge and experience in one or more digital applications, or almost none, this course will ensure your grasp of digital media is comprehensive, solid and up to date. It will give you a broad overview of the technology, its current uses in organizations and society, and its potential and implications for the future. It will provide knowledge and skills that form a strong base for immediate application.

Topics covered include principles of digital communication; overview of current uses of internet-based media in public relations, direct marketing, internal communications, fundraising, consumer relations and reputation management; trends and best practices in digital and social media technologies; effective online community management.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in, or possess, a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Course Description

This course deals with fundamental international business issues: the international business environment, foreign exchange risk, multinational corporations, international organizations, international sources of financing, international marketing policies, essential factors to be considered when entering foreign markets (licensing and exporting) and international management.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in, or possess, a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Course Description

Creativity can help us design novel products and services, while innovation is the process to bring the new product or service to the market. Entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs should be familiar with the different tools and methods that they can apply to design new products and services, and how to bring them to the market. Students will be introduced to a variety of creativity and innovation tools, such as design thinking, the business model canvas, the concept of minimum viable product, and agile product development.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in, or possess, a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Course Description

This course will explore the fundamental analytical methods and tools used to collect, analyze and interpret business data to gain insight and inform business decision-making, as well as data modelling concepts and techniques used by business analysts to accurately define and communicate business data requirements, business rules and data analytics methods for any project.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in, or possess, a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Program Description

The Digital Marketing short program, offered by Faculty Partnerships & Summer Studies of McGill, has been designed for people wishing to further expand their knowledge in this topic.

This program includes two courses:

1. Current Trends in Digital Communications
2. Social Media Strategy & Community Management

1. CURRENT TRENDS IN DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS (30 HOURS)

Whether you have knowledge and experience in one or more digital applications, or almost none, this course will ensure your grasp of digital media is comprehensive, solid and up to date. It will give you a broad overview of the technology, its current uses in organizations and society, and its potential and implications for the future. It will provide knowledge and skills that form a strong base for immediate application.

Topics covered include principles of digital communication; overview of current uses of internet-based media in public relations, direct marketing, internal communications, fundraising, consumer relations and reputation management; trends and best practices in digital and social media technologies; effective online community management.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES AND COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT (30 HOURS)

The use of social media platforms for promoting organizations, brands and causes has increased exponentially in recent years. Campaigns of all kinds rely heavily on social media, some even exclusively. This course will examine consumer behaviour in digital media; digital marketing practices; brand relations; online community-building and stakeholder engagement. Students will develop a digital campaign, including appropriate measurement and evaluation.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in, or possess, a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Program Description

Leverage your strengths in quantitative analysis to extrapolate meaningful business insights from large data sets. This program will introduce you to a practical toolkit to help you work with data at scale.

This program includes two courses:

1. Introduction to Data Science for Business Decisions
2. Introduction to Data at Scale

1. INTRODUCTORY DATA SCIENCE FOR BUSINESS DECISIONS (30 HOURS)

This course aims to provide an overview of how data science can help drive business decisions and create new business models. The emphasis is placed on how to move from data to insight. The course explores the data science process and various challenges that data driven businesses face including ethics, data governance and privacy, among others. The evolution of data technology and storage, as well as application of data science tools and techniques in different business areas such as customer and web analytics, operations analytics, human resources related analytics are explored through examples from various industries such as banking, healthcare, marketing, agriculture to name a few.

2. INTRODUCTION TO DATA AT SCALE (30 HOURS)

This course familiarizes participants with different aspects of large data sets and how they are managed both on site and in the Cloud. Emphasis is placed on providing participants with hands-on experience from data ingestion to analysis of large data sets, both data-at-rest or data-in-motion (streaming data), including defining Big Data and its 5 V’s: Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity, and Value. Architectures of distributed databases and storage, ecosystems such as Hadoop and Spark are covered followed by introduction to Scala, Spark-Shell and PySpark.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in one of the following programs or hold a degree in:
  • Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.)
  • Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.)
  • Bachelor of Commerce in MIS (B.Com MIS)
• Essential skills in Linux, Java, SQL
• Solid understanding of statistical concepts
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Program Description

In collaboration with the Margaret A. Gilliam Institute for Global Food Security and the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, aims to provide a holistic understanding of one of the most pressing global issues of our time: ensuring sustainable food systems for all.

Made up of two courses, the program provides an in-depth examination of the current challenges facing food security and best practices for the successful implementation of sustainable food technologies and innovations that meet the requirements of the producer, the retailer, and the consumer, while improving resource-use efficiency along agri-food value chains.

This program includes two courses:

1. Current Challenges in Global Food Security
2. Fundamentals of Sustainable Food Systems

1. CURRENT CHALLENGES IN GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY (30 HOURS)

This course will examine the complexity of food security in both developed and developing settings, its multiple definitions, and methods to measure its severity. Focus will be placed on understanding emerging challenges in tackling global food security including building robust inter-sectoral partnerships for successful project management and bringing change to the most vulnerable communities.

2. FUNDAMENTALS OF SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS (30 HOURS)

The urgent need to sustainably feed a growing population is the focus of this course. Topic covered include the fundamental components to build sustainable food systems, including, but not limited to, the current mode of global food production, agricultural resource-use efficiency, climate change, malnutrition, postharvest management, and food wastage.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in, or possess, a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Program Description

If you are interested in acquiring essential practical machine learning knowledge and skills, this program is for you.

This program includes two courses:

1. Introduction to Computational Applied Statistics
2. Introduction to Practical Machine Learning

1. INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTATIONAL APPLIED STATISTICS (30 HOURS)

This course introduces fundamental statistical machine learning concepts and tools using Python. Emphasis is placed on the following subjects: descriptive statistics, statistical distributions, random number generation, basic data visualization; linear regression; basic classification; error estimation: cross-validation, bias-variance trade-off; shrinkage methods; dimension reduction; beyond linearity: smoothing splines, local regression, additive models; tree and ensemble methods; powerful classifiers; unsupervised learning.

2. INTRODUCTION TO PRACTICAL MACHINE LEARNING (30 HOURS)

This course aims to introduce participants to essential machine learning methods and techniques through an end-to-end machine learning project. Emphasis is placed on practical experience with machine learning using Python programming language, scikit-learn and TensorFlow, as well as on understanding classification and training models. The course will introduce artificial Neural Networks, deep learning, convolutional and recurrent neural nets and reinforcement learning.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in one of the following programs or hold a degree in:
  • Bachelor of Computer Science (B.CompSc)
  • Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.)
  • Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.)
  • Bachelor of Commerce in MIS (B.Com MIS)
• Intermediate Programming skills in Python
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).

Program Description

This program includes two courses:

1. Introduction to International Organizations
2. Regulation Mechanisms of International Organizations

1. INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (30 HOURS)

Introduction to the most predominant international organizations involved in international politics and trade, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the World Health Organization. Historical background that gave rise to their creation, mandate, and operations. Frameworks for assessing their role in changing geopolitical contexts, and analysis of their impact on setting the international agenda, mediating political bargaining, providing a place for political initiatives and acting as catalysts for coalition since their creation up to the present day.

2. REGULATION MECHANISMS OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (30 HOURS)

This course aims to introduce participants to essential machine learning methods and techniques through an end-to-end machine learning project. Emphasis is placed on practical experience with machine learning using Python programming language, scikit-learn and TensorFlow, as well as on understanding classification and training models. The course will introduce artificial Neural Networks, deep learning, convolutional and recurrent neural nets and reinforcement learning.

Admission Requirements and Pre-Requisites

• Applicants must be currently enrolled in, or possess, a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• The language of instruction is English (TOEFL iBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Duolingo 105 or equivalent).