Why ‘Service Management’ is THE specialization to choose…

by · April 17, 2023

Within UVic’s Bachelor of Commerce (Business) program, you get to take a specialization semester in your final year to learn valuable information about the area of business you want to develop a career in…

As I stated in a previous post about the BCom program at UVic, the specialization options are:

  1. Service Management
  2. Entrepreneurship
  3. International Business
  4. Unspecialized / Other (usually pursued by accounting/finance-interested students)

What is the Service Management specialization?

Customer Experience Management class

As many know today, all businesses are considered service businesses… so learning how to lead and manage them is a crucial job that will forever be needed in the job market.

The service management program teaches students to manage people, processes, the environment, and technology to deliver positive customer and employee experiences, build customer loyalty, and increase company profit.

Students will be in 3 mandatory courses: customer experience management, operations/quality management, and human resource/talent management.

In addition, students can take 2 electives or the 2 required 4th-year courses that must be completed at some point, or you can choose to just do the 3 mandatory courses and focus on that!

More information on the requirements and content of the service management program  

Why is Service Management at UVic so great?

While I could go on forever about how much I enjoyed the program and the incredible knowledge I gained throughout the 4 months, I’ll describe some brief reasons below:

My team completing a project in the UVic quad

  • Each course’s content is highly valuable and is kept up to date with our changing economy to ensure students are learning accurate information to assist them upon graduation.
  • The Professors are experts on their course topics and put in so much effort to make sure that the students are not only absorbing the information, but having FUN while learning! The 3 professors are all extremely supportive, kind, engaging, entertaining, respectful, and positive! I encourage you to participate in class & speak to the profs whenever you can, they give great feedback and are lovely to chat with! You can also learn a lot from them as people outside of class. Remember… Business school isn’t just about what you learn, it’s who you connect with!!! Your network is your net worth after you graduate.
  • There are many opportunities to go ‘out in the field’ and learn about service businesses. Some projects will require you to visit and analyze businesses, and even interview business people, and there are also field trips the class will take altogether to learn while having fun.
  • You get to work in teams with your friends, but also are given the chance to do some independent projects and show what YOU know!
  • You complete valuable projects to show what you’ve learnt, rather than strictly exams and tests like previous courses have done. This really engages the student to absorb and apply their knowledge rather than memorize facts for a test. Many projects are completed in teams which provides the real-world experience of working with coworkers on big company projects.

My team getting together for a potluck as a team bonding activity

My career end-goal is to become a General Business Consultant / Service Management Consultant. Before this semester, I wanted to be a Project Manager… but this specialization really opened my eyes to the world of consulting.

This semester of my Service Management specialization was truly the most enjoyable and valuable semester of my 4 years at UVic. I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to learn under such highly respected profs, with intelligent and fun classmates, in a supportive and safe environment. While the other specializations are still great from what I’ve heard, I highly recommend taking the service management specialization. Especially if you are still unsure of the specific career you want to pursue… because what you will learn is extremely valuable in any job.

My team at one of the class field trips at Butchart Gardens

Study session in the Business & Economics building where there are many rooms and areas to work, as well as printers and whiteboards to use

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