Georgian College

8 GEORGIANVIEW 2019-20 WINTER Some Computer Studies students were perplexed when Professor Chris Dyck, an instructor in their program, joined them in a class that he wasn't teaching. The news was even more shocking when they learned that Chris was there as an actual student, following the same path that many of his students were taking, and learning what it's like to be a student in the 21st century. As a neuroscience student in the 1990s, he grew tired of lugging around heavy textbooks, so he figured out how to scan the pages into an electronic format. Using grant funding from the university in 1994, he started a company that pioneered the eBook publishing industry in Canada. Within three years his clients included top trade and educational publishers, and software companies including Simon and Schuster, Pearson Education, Time/Warner, Apple, IBM, Microsoft and NASA. He eventually took a job with De la Salle College in Toronto, teaching computer studies to kids in Grades 5 and 6 and 10 to 12, and by 2015 he was working at Georgian College teaching Java. In 2016, Chris helped launch Georgian's one-year, post-graduate Big Data Analytics program, noting the excitement that had been building around data management as a result of giant leaps in technology related to processing power, storage and data collection. In 2019, and to tremendous applause from many of the students in the audience, Chris crossed the stage with his students to accept a Georgian diploma. His biggest lesson from this experience? "Becoming a student again helped me relate more closely to their challenges." FACULTY SPOTLIGHT WHEN THE TEACHER BECOMES THE STUDENT Chris Dyck – Computer Programming, class of 2019

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