Part-time education is now available for KPU brewing students
The brewing and brewery operations diploma will be offered in three and four-year structures, inspired by a student
KPU alumna Su Kim putting caps on bottles of beer. (Submitted)
New three and four-year part-time study options are available to Kwantlen Polytechnic University brewing and brewery operations students beginning in the fall.
Prospective students can now choose between the regular two-year full-time option or the two new part-time pathways to complete the diploma in brewing and brewery operations. These new offerings offer students study options with greater flexibility and make the program more accessible to a new pool of students.
“It’s trying to give people an option to do it in a longer time span,” says Dominic Bernard, instructor and chair of the KPU brewing and brewery operations program.
“We’ve had a student actually do it this way. She had applied for the program, and then had a conversation with us saying, ‘I can’t do it full-time. Can we do it part time?’ So we did. And so now we’re just making it official.”
The student, Su Kim, graduated from the program this spring as the first person to do the program part-time, and is the inspiration behind the new part-time structures.
She says if it were not for being allowed to take the program part-time, it may not have been an option for her at all, citing a language barrier and family among the reasons.
“It is very difficult for the people who [are] not fluently speaking English, especially learning chemistry and microbiology,” Kim says.
“If I compare with a full-time student, I [would have] had to take more than four subjects in one term. It [would] be very difficult because I have two [young] kids, and if I took more than four subjects in the term, it [would] be very difficult and I might give up.”
Program administrators allowed Kim to take the program part-time following an email she sent explaining her circumstance. Now graduated, Kim just started a new job at a brewery.
Part-time students can take the same classes as the full-time program, the only difference being going through with more exposure to a variety of classmates over time, rather than the two-year cohort normally experienced with the full-time option.
“What I’m most excited about with this program is … what [beverages] the students are releasing. Every year, the students are always releasing something different, something new, … innovating, and then going out in the industry and bringing that knowledge,” Bernard says.
“Some students produce some really good beers, and those beers have gone on to win awards. I think it has brought the KPU name into a space that maybe KPU wasn’t known for before, [and] brought recognition to KPU as a whole.”
For more information about the part-time brewing and brewery operations program options, visit bit.ly/4dHabU8 or contact brew@kpu.ca.
