PACE helped me gain Canadian industry insights

When I look back on the year passed and how PACE was unique, two things come to mind.

1. The go-to-market focused curriculum that helped us hit the ground running as soon as we enter the job market. The assignments and projects reflected the day-to-day tasks we perform in the job and helped us gain the hands-on experience we all needed. I can confidently say that PACE graduates are better equipped to face real-world challenges.
2. Industry professionals as instructors: PACE offers the advantage of being taught by esteemed and successful professionals in the industry. We had the opportunity to discuss and learn about emerging challenges in the industry and how markets are dealing with them.

As an international student returning to academics, PACE helped me gain North American, or to be precise Canadian, industry insights. If I consider my past experience as a cake, PACE is the icing that I needed to prepare myself for the Canadian job market.

I keep telling my friends that opting for the internship is one of the best decisions I made during the program. It not only helped me interact with various employers (through interviews) and learn about their expectations, it also helped me choose a pathway for my career in Canada.

The four weeks of the internship at Imaginet were smooth sailing thanks to my reporting manager, Mercy-Anne Magundayo. I was given an opportunity to bring my skills and expertise to the table and focus on the key result areas that could help me and the organization. When the expectations were met, I was offered a job to continue what I was doing and grow along with the organization as Marketing Specialist.

My most memorable experience at PACE is that it was a great opportunity to come together as a group. Our cohort was very diverse in many ways: our past industry experience, cultures (both work and value systems), and perspectives yet we managed to come together as a team, learn from each other, and grow collectively. There are many instances where we learned to overcome our subconscious biases and make a collective effort.

My advice to future PACE students is this:

• Engage with instructors, use the safe space to fail fast and learn quickly (from mistakes).
• Connect with your alumni and learn from their insights.
• The assignments and projects you complete make a good portfolio, so do your best. It was my portfolio that helped me to land a job and even some freelance projects before I finished my course.

There is no doubt that PACE has one of the best curricula but it’s the onus of you as a student to take advantage of the benefits.

Rajesh graduated from the Marketing Management program with the Class of 2021. Rajesh held a Master’s in Mass Communications from the University of Hyderabad in India before coming to PACE.

Photo courtesy of Rajesh Cheemalakonda