A Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) is a way to shape your high school experience around a career area or specialization that interests you, while earning your Ontario Secondary School Diploma and keeping your options open.
The program offers students the opportunity to experience a range of customized, career-focused learning opportunities.
SHSM Sectors at Emily Carr S.S.
Emily Carr offers 2 SHSM pathways to enhance a career path that matches a student's skills and interests. These specialized programs enable students to take interest-based courses together with experiential learning in a SHSM sector.
What are the benefits?
SHSM provides students with an opportunity to:
- Customize their secondary school education to suit their strengths, interests and abilities
- Develop specialized knowledge and skills
- Earn credits that postsecondary educational institutions and the sector recognize including a work experience in Co-operative Education
- Gain sector-recognized certification and career-relevant training
- Develop Essential Skills and work habits documented through the Ontario Skills Passport
- Identify, explore and refine career goals and make informed decisions about their future
- Remain flexible, with the option to shift between pathways, should their goals and plans change.
Students who successfully complete an SHSM will have a special SHSM Red Seal embossed on their Ontario Secondary School Diploma and will also receive an official SHSM Record documenting the SHSM credits earned, and the industry/business sector related certifications and training received, as a part of their SHSM.
Students who graduate with an SHSM can look forward to improved prospects after secondary school because of the recognition of and support for the SHSM content from business and industry, apprenticeship training programs, colleges, and universities.
Who is SHSM for?
SHSM is available to all students in grades 11 and 12 regardless of their choice of post-secondary destination.