For those looking forward to study abroad, Canada has become a very popular option in the recent past. With its diversity in land, culture and courses to study, a lot of students nowadays are opting to go to Canada more and more for their higher studies; especially Indian students are opting for this peaceful country more and more when it comes to higher studies abroad.

Canada not only holds diversity in land and culture but it offers a diverse range of courses for its students to choose from. One can chose from various options like – high school diploma, degree courses, summer sessions, exchange students, four years course, two years course, and can even go for part time or full time courses either on the campus or via internet.

Institutes and Colleges in Canada happen to be one of the top reputed colleges for its low tuition fees and globally accepted certificates and degrees. And that is not the only attraction; another magnet force of Canada is its large stretched natural and cultural environment. There are many coaching centers in India helping students with test preparation to study abroad.

The education system in Canada is a provincial system taken care of by the Canadian government, i.e. there is quite a difference between the education system of different provinces, though common high standard is maintained throughout the country.

In total, Canada has 73 universities plus 180 community colleges, if one wishes to pursue a degree course then one can go for admission in university in Canada, the colleges on the other hand provide diploma courses for 2 – 3 years of duration. There is a wide range of colleges and the courses offered by them which are –

University of Alberta – early education in childhood, biotech in plant, forestry and law. University of Calgary – programs in environment and resource, marine science, general arts, business and management, medicine, architecture, computer science, music and fine arts and social work. University of Lethbridge – inter disciplinary courses and multi disciplinary major, women’s studies, studies in urban and regional subjects, science, arts, management, engineering etc. University of Northern British Columbia – natural resource management course, it has limited seats for enrollment in any of its programs and students coming from international destinations have to pay 1.75 times more than the regular fees. Simon Fraser University – communication, applied mathematics, business administration and the study of human body parts i.e. kinesiology. Nova Scotia College – degree courses in fine arts, design and ceramics. This college happens to be the best college in the entire North America for its fine art courses.

Besides the list above, there are many more well-reputed colleges and universities in Canada offering a wide range of options in almost all spheres of courses and study topics.

Hence, it is pretty evident that there is no possible course option that one can’t find in Canada be it business or management field, medicine and science field or architecture and fine arts, one can get all the options readily available here.

Contrasting the US education system, a course in Bachelors degree here is for 3 years, although Honors takes an added year. Masters degree courses are a blend of course work and research.

So, if you have finally made up your mind to go and pursue a course in Canada then you can apply for student’s visa via CIC (citizenship and immigration Canada). It requires filling up of an application, the processing amount (fees), and other necessary documents that are to be submitted.

For more information on studying in Canada you can go to various education sites, blogs, forums etc.

“We have a very active minor with 100 students, and there are currently three Master’s degree students. A women’s studies major is the next logical step,” said Dr. Sandra Spencer, director of the women’s studies program at NT. 

The minor program will aim to foster understanding of the diversity of women’s lives by teaching about race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age and how gender discrimination affects the female experience. 

Dr. Spencer and other women’s studies faculty are in the process of having the women’s studies program become its’ own field at NT. No other college in the North Texas area has a women’s studies program. TWU currently has a doctoral program for women’s studies but no major. 

Dr. Spencer began considering this possibility two years ago, and has since amassed a large amount of paperwork, support, and enthusiasm from NT faculty. 

“What we really need to get this pushed through are more faculty associated with the women’s studies program, and more funding,” said Dr. Spencer.

“I think it is important to better understand the issues women face in society on a daily basis. There are many corporations that still see women as inferior to men,” Randi-Kay Foy, a sociology senior said.

“There is gender inequality all over the place, especially when it comes to age. The amount of pressure from the media and society to be thin and look young is unconscionable,” Spencer said.

Dr. Spencer says that because of the ailing world economy it is more important than ever to learn about the struggles that women face in today’s world. 

“There is a myth that you can do anything you set your mind to. No, you can’t. If you’re a single mother, who is going to pay the rent? Who is going to walk the dog?” Dr. Spencer said passionately. “Gender equality is a crusade for me.”

“It would be good if women’s studies was offered as a major because there are so many areas in the workforce that deal with minorities as well as women,” said Imelda Garcia, a social science junior. 

While enthusiastic about the idea, Garcia worries about the practicality of such a major. “I am not sure that there are many careers or jobs that would take it seriously, Garcia said.

Currently the women’s studies program is getting letters of support from potential employers for students with this degree, such as Planned Parenthood, companies dealing with women’s health, domestic violence, and especially nonprofit organizations.

Dr. Spencer wants women to have the “confidence and courage to seek more, and to feel that they are appreciated for what they do.” Dr. Spencer says that when women’s studies becoming a major will be a step in the right direction.

What Should You Do?

It is important that you first understand the transfer credit process to ensure that you can take the right steps to earn transfer credit.

While the transfer credit process varies from institution to institution, the outline below is a relatively standard guide for schools that pre-approve credit for study abroad:

Your home institution (university) makes the final decision regarding how many credits will transfer from your study abroad program and how they will be treated (e.g. major credit, elective credit, etc). The following three-part process will help guide you through the process of securing your transfer credit approval.

1. Before The Program (Pre-approval)

• As early as possible, speak with the study abroad program sponsor (your study abroad office or a third-party provider) to learn about potential course options on the program that you are interested in. The program sponsor should be able to provide the syllabi and course descriptions that you might need to receive course pre-approval.

• Make an appointment with your study abroad office and academic advisor to review your course options. Make your appointment early as advisor schedules are often very busy as deadlines approach.

• Receive a signed pre-approval form from your home university. We strongly recommend that you receive pre-approval for more courses than you plan to attend (as in the United States, courses schedules at host universities can change, scheduling conflicts might occur or you might change your mind about which courses you would like to attend)

2. During the Program

• Your home institution will require a minimum standard of academic performance in order to grant transfer credit (typically, a “C” equivalent or above), so it is important that you attend class and perform according to the host university’s standards and expectations. Your grade is solely determined by your professors and the host university.

• At some home institutions, while credit does transfer, grades from study abroad do not transfer and study abroad courses are not counted toward GPA calculations. You should ask about the transfer credit policies and procedures of your home institution.

3. After The Program

• Ensure that the program sponsor has the name and address of the appropriate person at your home institution who will receive your official transcripts.

• Take all course material back with you, including syllabi, work completed, essays and examinations, in case it is ever needed.

 
The Executive Director of Jim Joseph Foundation, Charles Mark Edelsberg, Ph.D. notes: “Only one other major research university in the U.S. currently offers such a program:  NYU—which the foundation also supports.
 
“This program of study enables students to examine Jewish history, culture, language (Hebrew), and literature as well as Judaism’s dynamic forms of religious observance.  It is not a religious studies degree but a PhD in education and Jewish Studies. It will admit two students per year for the first three years of the program and then will ramp up by one additional student per year afterwards to reach a total of seven.”
 
“The foundation selected Stanford for this award because of its college of education’s stellar reputation.  Stanford also features a robust graduate program of Jewish studies.  The scholarship of the Stanford faculty—both in education and Jewish studies—is formidable.’
 
“What makes this renewed concentration unique is its broad, all-encompassing approach to education,” said Dr. Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at
Brandeis University.  “SUSE and the Jim Joseph Foundation understand that Jewish education encompasses issues of nationality, peoplehood and culture, as well as religion; that Judaism is a broad civilization embracing both secular and Jewish elements.” 

 
 
In a statement, Stanford University says:
“Through this generous gift, Jim Joseph Foundation is helping to pioneer a new paradigm for thinking about the intersection of religion and education,” says Sam Wineburg, the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and of History, who led Stanford’s effort. “We’re putting our energy into the intersection of education and Jewish studies because Stanford has a record of success in this field and because there’s a need to produce more scholars with this background. The impact of this significant JJF gift will be broadly felt. More children across the globe are educated in religious institutions than secular ones. However, we don’t yet know, and have not yet begun to properly study, what ramifications this may have for future generations.”
Faculty in Stanford’s School of Education will collaborate with scholars in Stanford’s Taube Center of Jewish Studies to create the curriculum for this new concentration.
“We truly are embarking on a new era of research and understanding about how religion and education intersect,” said Professor Vered Karti Shemtov, co-director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies.  ”Our center is looking forward to contributing to this new concentration and working with its scholars and students. We have long participated in educating the next generations of leaders in the study of Jewish history, religion and literatures.  Thanks to the Jim Joseph Foundation, the new concentration will allow us to train scholars who will influence not only the academic world, but also K-12 education.”
 
 
 
 
In one comment on the subject, Dean and Vice President of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California Arthur Holder was interviewed by telephone and email on the new Chair and its concentration. Here is the interview in commentary:
 
Is this a lot of money?
That’s the level of funding that’s appropriate for this kind of program; $12 million is a substantial amount of funding that will support one faculty chair and fellowship (i.e., scholarship) support, as well as programming such as conferences and seminars.
 
What does a Chair at GTU cost? We’ll give readers a comparison.
To endow a faculty chair at the GTU would be $2.5 million. But it is not that the whole $12 million at Stanford is going to the faculty chair, since the program includes fellowships and conferences as well. I’m assuming this is an endowment that will produce in the neighborhood of half a million dollars a year (at 4%). Their required level of funding for a faculty chair is probably more than we would require.
 
 
Are you surprised that Stanford would be a choice for this Chair?
No. Stanford has a strong and well established track record for this kind of graduate program. It is certainly an appropriate place for this kind of study. You have to have a strong school of education and a strong program in Jewish Studies for this kind of concentration.
 
 
Who do you think might fill the Chair?
Obviously, somebody who is highly competent in both the field of education and the field of Jewish Studies. There will be a research focus for the position, so I’m sure Stanford will be looking for an accomplished Jewish researcher with a background in Jewish Education.
 
How are such chairs and study areas created?
This kind of chair comes out of a meeting of two things: One is a donor, in this case, a Foundation [San Francisco's Jim Joseph Foundation] that has a very strong commitment to a particular topic. Then that topic has to fit within the mission of the university. This has to be a kind of blending. This (Stanford Jewish Studies chair, and concentration) has every likelihood of working. Stanford has done this kind of work before, and they already have a wide range of doctoral areas in their School of Education. If someone comes to a university and says we are going to give you $12 million for a faculty chair in Buddhist studies but the university is a business school with no established programs in Religious Studies, then that isn’t going to work. You have to locate a chair in a university that does the kind of work that the new program is meant to accomplish.
 
 
In what way does the Jewish Studies’ concentration meet the criteria as religious education? Your thoughts, please.
Religious education should be just as rigorous, just as sophisticated, and make use of all the educational theory and scientific methods as any other kind of education. Stanford’s new program appears to be a good example of that. Religious education is not a watered down kind of education. It has to be just as sophisticated as public education, for example. It is a good thing to see when a religious community takes the “education” part of religious education just as seriously as they do the “religious” part.
 
 
 
 
Sam Wineburg, Professor at Stanford, played a key role in bringing the $12 million Chair in Jewish studies into existence.
 
In an interview, he made this statement:
 
Why a “Concentration” and not a “Program” in the School of Education? 
Students will be admitted into one of the existing SUSE doctoral programs and will take additional coursework allowing them to “concentrate” in Education and Jewish Studies. 
 
Why would a secular university like Stanford want to get involved in “religious education?” Isn’t that advocacy? 
The study of Jewish education, Islamic education, or Catholic education is a scholarly enterprise similar to the study of bilingual education, multicultural education or science education.  The frequency with which the intersections of religion and education have become important problems of policy and practice, both historically and in the present day, makes their careful study critically important.
 
 How can scholars better understand the role of religious education in moral development?  How do schools operate when they include curricula that reflect essentially universal and secular values and also curricula that are built on systems of faith and tradition?  How is the very act of interpretive reading undertaken when approached devotionally as against analytically? 
 
 Will religion and its attendant systems of education become venues for cultivating peace and inter-cultural understanding or occasions for sowing hatred and intolerance?  How can religious education be conducted in the context of multi-cultural, pluralistic democratic societies and remain “faithful” both to democratic and religious values?  What is the role of religion and religious education in the development of identity, commitment and compassion?  The intersection of religion and education touches many fields – from international security and economic development to questions of identity, community, and affiliation studied by scholars from a range of disciplines.  This intersection deserves the serious attention of outstanding education scholars.
 
Why now? 
There is a new found interest in programs in education and Jewish Studies at our nation’s top universities. Michael Steinhart’s endowment of the Ph.D. program in Education and Jewish Studies at NYU is the most notable example, but new positions and programs have been created at some of the leading institutions of public and private higher education: Penn  Wisconsin, York (Toronto), Brandeis to name a just a few. One consequence of this development is that there are few faculty qualified to fill these positions. The only major research university in the United States with a track record for preparing scholars of Education and Jewish Studies at the doctoral level is Stanford. We would build on that record.
 
 
In another Stanford press statement, it’s noted:
Dr. Wendy Rosov, a graduate of Stanford’s original concentration who is now a private education consultant, collaborated with Wineburg on a feasibility study for the new effort. She was a significant part of the team in bringing the Jim Joseph Foundation to Stanford to endow the Chair and its concentration.
 
“Stanford is a great institution, and we are certain it will attract extraordinary talent and produce scholars who will help to build and lead the field,” said Chip Edelsberg, executive director of the Jim Joseph Foundation.
 
Faculty in the School of Education will collaborate with scholars in Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies to develop the curriculum, offer courses and seminars, and advise doctoral students.
 
It is believed by one reliable source that the work of the Center for Jewish Studies and the college, and the faculty will be animating one another. The Taube Center is a tremendously rich resource, the source said.
 
 
 
 
Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:
For the School of Education at the prestigious university … the grant is the largest in its history. The grant is large, too, for a foundation that has squarely set its sights on formal and informal Jewish education, comprising probably just less than 10 percent of the foundation’s annual grants over the next several years, according to (Jim Joseph Foundation chairman, Al Levitt.  
“This is part of our intention of creating more Jewish educators in the broader sense,” Levitt told The Fundermentalist this week. “The idea was to make an important statement about the value of Jewish education. If Stanford doesn’t have the best department of education, it is one of top two or three.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rabbi Yitzoch Adlerstein of the Rabbinical Council of California comments regarding Jewish studies:
 
The notion of a $12 million donation is a delight. It shows there are Jewish givers who are still interested in giving to Jewish causes. There is money around, but it is going to non Jewish causes. It’s nice to have a chair and department in Jewish studies. The first question is are there going to be Jews interested in reading the scholarship that is coming out of the department today. When people do consider the overarching question of Jewish survival, will there be Jews in the next generation, some of us in the Orthodox camp are a bit disappointed that initiatives with demonstrated ability to capture the imagination of programs to capture the imagination of young Jews.
 
 
 
 
 
President of the Jim Joseph Foundation Al Levitt finds the $12 million well spent. He says in a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report:
 
“We are talking about creating a model to provide teachers and educators in perpetuity,” Levitt said. “This is about more than just day schools. The educational field is more than just day schools. Only about 12 percent of the total Jewish population even go to day schools. That is a relatively small percentage — and of that, a significant portion is Orthodox. There is a huge number of young people who don’t go to day schools.
We are talking about educators in all the other fields of Jewish life, and educating people who are dealing with programs and running organizations. The definition of education is very broad. What if the executive director of Hillel had a Ph.D., or what if a Ph.D.-holder was the executive director of B’nai B’rith? We have the ability to have that kind of impact.”
 
 
In a few questions asked of Associate Professor Charlotte Fonrobert, Co-Director, Taube Center the reader gets an idea of the religious imperative of the Chair and concentration:
 
Will there be a religious imperative to the studies?
The Jewish Studies program does not really have “a religious imperative,” although I am unsure what you mean by that. We have two faculty members – myself, my field is classical Judaism, rabbinic literature, the Talmud; and my colleague Prof. Steve Weitzman, whose field is Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism – who teach in the Dept. of Religious Studies. So both of us are interested in religious aspects of Jewish culture, which for so many centuries played a central role in Jewish history. The imperative of the Center however is to explore the many facets of Jewish culture (history, literature, religion), and this new chair at the intersection of Jewish Studies and Education will add another dimension, in terms of shaping a concentration that will explore how religious identity formation influences and is influence by education.
 
Will you speak to the issue of Jewish education and the focus of the Chair?

The focus of this chair is on the intersection of Jewish Studies and Education, and to training scholars who will be able to analyze the impact the role of Jewish education in K-12 education, and more broadly the intersection of religion and education. We are hoping (and expecting) that this initiative will only be the beginning of an academic initiative to explore this intersection between religion and education more broadly – and not just for the Jewish context. The role of religion in education, especially in k-12 education, needs to be understood more broadly and more critically, as more children across the globe are educated in religious institutions and in the US in day schools.

“This extraordinary gift from the Jim Joseph Foundation allows Stanford to lead the country in the study of the nexus of culture, religion, and education,” said Deborah Stipek, dean of the School of Education. “Scholarship in this area is critical to understanding the central role of religion in education, and its broad implications for humanity. We are deeply grateful to the foundation for this opportunity.”

Potential clients are hungry for this kind of information. A success story with a previous client provides evidence of the value of your products or services. The potential client wants to know how your products or services can solve their problems as well. A case study may make the difference in convincing a potential client to do business with you.

That’s why it’s best to use a Reader-Centered Approach to write your case studies. With this approach, you write your success story from the point of view of the reader — that is, the potential client — who will read the case study.

What Is Your Market?

First, define your market(s) for the case study. Which customers, in which markets, are you trying to impress with your success story? Will your case study be a general case study about your work for a large, high-profile company or organization? Or will your case study target customers in a specific market, or sub-set of a market?

It’s important to have both kinds of case studies. General case studies show the versatility of your company in providing solutions to different, high-profile industries, hospitals, universities, government organizations, etc. Market-specific case studies let you target potential customers within those same markets.

Once you have defined the markets for your case study, select a success story for a client company that appeals to those markets. For example, if you are targeting high-tech customers with your case study, select a success story where you provided a solution to a high-tech client.

Who Is Your Reader?

What position will your reader hold at the company where they work? Are they the CEO? The CFO? The Chief Technology Officer? The Director of Business Operations? The VP of Sales and Marketing?

Ask yourself, who have you dealt with in the past? Look at the client company that is the subject of your case study. Who did you work with there? Which executive or manager made the first call to engage your company? Who made the decision to buy? These same kinds of executives and managers at other companies will be the people who will read your case studies.

One trick I’ve learned is to go to your client company’s web site, and read the short biographies of the executives and managers that you will mention in the case study. It’s probable that readers of your case study will have similar backgrounds, duties, and responsibilities.

What Does Your Reader Know?

How familiar is your reader with the basic concepts of your products or services? What do they know about the solutions you provide? What do they NOT know? How much will you need to explain to them?

If your readers are familiar with your products or technology, you probably won’t need to explain the basic concepts. You can focus instead on the technical features of your products or services, and how those features provided benefits to the client company.

If your readers are CEOs or other executives, they will be focused more on the “bottom line” — the problems you solved for the client, the cost savings, ROI, TCO, etc. You don’t need to go into too much technical detail. But be wary of assuming that a CEO or other executive automatically understands your products or services. You may need to explain some basic concepts to them.

Once, a high-tech executive returned a case study draft to me with a section crossed out. He added a margin comment: “We don’t need to explain this. Everyone already knows this part of the technology.”

I wrote back to him: “Everyone in your industry knows this part of the technology. But we are targeting your high-tech solutions to business CEOs, real estate executives, and hospital boards. They have no prior knowledge of this technology. Therefore, we need to explain the concepts to them.”

Anticipate Your Reader’s Questions

A case study should answer specific questions that your reader may have about your product or service. As an example, say you are writing a case study for a network software product. The reader may have the following questions:

How is this software product installed on a company network?
How will the features of this software help our employees to do their jobs better?
What kinds of benefits can we expect from using this software product?

You can easily adapt these questions into an “interview questionnaire,” to use when you interview the people at the client company that is the subject of the case study. For example:

How was the software deployed on your company’s network?
In what ways did your employees use the specific features of the software? What tasks or goals did they accomplish through the software?
What benefits did your company experience from using the software? (Increased productivity? Faster time-to-market? Etc.)

Tell Them A Story

The information in a case study should not be a bland listing of facts and bullet points. The reader is looking to see how your products or services work in a “real world” scenario. Therefore, as you write the case study, you want to tell the reader a story.

The trick here is to keep the story focused on the client company. You want to focus not on the various features of your products or services, but on how those features were used to the client’s benefit. How were the features employed to help the client company achieve their goals? What tangible benefits did the client company receive as a result?

Describe how individual people or departments at the client company made use of your solutions. Use real names if you can; or, if not, use titles like “the Director of Product Management.” The more personal you make the case study, the more readers will begin to trust that your solutions can help their company as well.

Organize for Maximum Effect

Organize the information in your case study into sections according to a basic template. This allows you to present the information in a logical format, so that the reader can follow the story and understand how your solution worked.

Use headings and sub-headings to guide the reader through the various sections. The template I use for a case study is:

Company Overview — A short description of the client company.
The Challenge — The problems that the client company faced before they employed your company’s products or services.
The Solution — The product or service solutions that your company provided to the client company.
Key Benefits — The key benefits that the client company received by implementing your solutions.

The final section, “Key Benefits,” should be divided up into four or five sub-sections, with one or two paragraphs each that examine each benefit. Examples of the sub-sections for “Key Benefits” might include:

Increased Productivity
Lower Production Costs
Easy Tracking of Production Data
Faster Time-To-Market

Whatever template you use, make sure that all of your company’s case studies follow the same standard template.

Use Illustrations, Photos, Graphs, and Quotes

Whenever possible, illustrate concepts in your case studies using illustrations and photos. Use graphs to provide statistics and analytics on the effectiveness of your solutions (i.e. increases in sales, etc.). Readers appreciate visual input to help them understand concepts and benefits, and to break up the large blocks of text they have to read.

Also, be sure to highlight quotes from executives at the client company who describe and praise the effectiveness of your solutions. (Example: “Acme Company’s solution allowed us to reduce our time-to-market by 66%.” — Ron Jones, VP of Operations.) A good place to put these quotes is in text boxes in the left-side margin of the case study, so the quotes are highly visible to the reader.

Give Them the Numbers

Readers are looking for statistics. They want some idea of how effective your solutions have been for other client companies. Some common statistics to use in your case studies include:

Increases in productivity
Time and cost savings
Decreases in waste and unnecessary expense
Return on Investment (ROI)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Increased sales or revenue

Provide an Abstract

Provide a one-paragraph abstract at the beginning of each case study. This makes it easy for the reader to find out if the case study relates to a client company similar to theirs. Also, a short abstract may attract the reader to read the case study, especially if it concerns solutions your company provided for a well-known, high-profile client.

In addition, be sure to print the case studies on a company letterhead that includes the company’s address, web site URL, and phone number.

Think Outside the Company

The most important thing in writing a case study is to put yourself in the place of someone outside your company. You want to write the case study from the point of view of a reader who is not familiar with your company, and who wants to know how your products or services can solve their problems and help them achieve their goals.

It’s not always easy for people inside your company to see things from the perspective of the potential customer. That’s why it’s sometimes better to have a professional writer to write your case studies for you. A professional case study writer has a better view of things from outside your company. They can see your company from the point of view of the would-be customer, ask questions that a would-be customer might ask, and write a case study to answer those questions.