NIC’s Tourism and Hospitality Management program gave her the opportunity to work and learn across BC and around the world.
In two years, Habibi completed a paid Co-op position at the Delta Grand Hotel in the Okanagan, studied at Kapiolani Community College in Hawaii, and helped to organize the Wine Festival in Campbell River, a fundraising event for the program’s annual behind-the-scenes tour of Las Vegas resorts and hotels.
Her skills and education earned her a position as a front desk supervisor at Courtenay’s Oh Spa at the Old House Village Hotel and Suites. Habibi then applied to NIC’s Bachelor of Business Administration degree program last fall.
NIC offers a ‘bridging’ option to allow tourism and hospitality graduates two years’ credit and access to complete a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in the Comox Valley.
Habibi is one student who took full advantage of the new pathway, travelling to the International School of Management in Dortmund, all while earning business degree credit. “After graduation, I changed my focus and realized that with just two more years of study I could go on exchange in Germany and graduate with a business degree,”said Habibi.
Tourism and hospitality management students enter directly into the third year of the Bachelor of Business Administration degree, with an option to choose a Marketing or General Management major.
Already, alumni like Amy Veloso are benefiting from the dual credentials.
“It’s a huge bonus,” said Veloso, one of the first tourism students to earn a business degree in 2012. “The business degree option opens up many more doors for tourism students.”
