December 2, 2025 • 47 mins
In this unique episode, we sit down with Dr. Jane Goodyer, Dean of the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University and a global leader in reimagining engineering education. From her inspiring personal journey to pioneering Canada’s first fully work-integrated digital technologies degree, Jane shares how academia and industry can collaborate to prepare graduates for the ever-changing world of work.
We explore:
- What “work-integrated learning” really means and why it matters.
- How resilience, curiosity, and empathy are critical skills for tomorrow’s engineers.
- The role of psychological safety and active learning in shaping future talent.
- Why continuous learning and breaking down silos between education and industry is essential.
Whether you’re an SRE, an educator, or a lifelong learner, this conversation will challenge how you think about skills, adaptability, and preparing for the unexpected.
Things to listen for:
Jane’s Origin Story
-
Her working-class background and early challenges.
-
How resilience shaped her journey.
Work-Integrated Learning Explained
-
Why it’s more than internships or co-ops.
-
Active vs. passive learning and why doing matters.
Resilience for the Future of Work
-
Why adaptability and psychological safety are essential.
Soft Skills as Hard Skills
-
Empathy, communication, curiosity, and self-awareness.
Industry-Academia Collaboration
-
The Trailblazer process and what employers really want.
Continuous Learning Beyond Graduation
-
Breaking silos between education and work.
Advice for Engineers
-
Be curious, brave, and true to your values.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What knowledge, skills and behaviours are you expecting from these graduates?
The employers looked at things very, very long term.
They were very interested in the ability for people to learn new, anticipate things thathaven't been anticipated.
(00:26):
That critical thinking, it was awesome.
It's really brought academia and employers and industry closer together, which I think isalways a good thing.
We are, I mean, we do interact, but to actually be hand in hand creating a programtogether, that's special.
(00:58):
Welcome back to another episode of Make Of the SRE Omelette Podcast.
Today we're joined by a truly visionary leader in engineering education,
Dr. Jane Goodyer.
She's the Dean of Lassonde School of Engineering at York University and a driving forcebehind Canada's first fully work integrated digital technologies degree from New Zealand
(01:21):
to UK to Canada.
Jane has reimagined how we prepare the next generation of technical talent, not just forthe jobs of today, but for the work of tomorrow.
Today, we're digging into something I think all SREs, site reliability engineers, andreally all professionals should be thinking about how do we build a resilient skill set
(01:46):
for the work environment that's constantly shifting.
Jane, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Kevin.
It's great to be here.
And yeah, I'm looking forward to the chat.
So, Jared, you had such an incredible bio, so want to make sure I get it right by readingit out.
So, a couple questions to open this.
How did you get into this field and why do you love what you do?
(02:11):
Good question.
I started out from a working class background.
never thought that, I didn't even know what a university was, never mind degrees.
unfortunately my mother died when I was 10 years old.
(02:37):
At that time, my father was obviously having a bit of a hard time with two young kids.
We were moving around a lot and I didn't really have much guidance because it was justabout existing.
And um then my dad remarried and it was a very, how can I say, a time of your life as anearly teenager when you've been influenced a lot.
(03:06):
you
lovely woman, my stepmother, she was that good influence and for her she was quitedifferent because she was illiterate until she was in her mid-forties and so she
understood the value of education and at the time she knew that I was fairly clever, Idon't know why.
(03:38):
And so she was encouraging me at school and
she worked as an assembly operator in a factory.
so because you're only influenced by what you know, she goes, Jane, I think you'd bereally good coming to work at my factory as an apprentice.
(04:01):
Yeah, that sounds good.
know, nobody else is telling me anything else.
So.
um
And I said, well, how do I get into your business then?
Because they were making electrical relays and things like that.
So I thought, electrical engineering.
(04:23):
And then what happened when I didn't get any help at high school, they said, no, if youwant to be an engineer, you need to do Latin.
drop your physics.
So it was just so hard to get into it.
And so I ignored what they said, which is, this is going to be a theme through today aboutjust ignore it.
(04:52):
Just do what you feel is right.
So I ended up doing good at when I was 16 years of age.
take your...
uh
you're leaving school exams and they the school said actually did quite well stay on atschool and do your more advanced levels to maybe go to university.
(05:13):
was like you know but I want to be an apprentice and so the the company said oh you knowcarry on
And at the time, there was a high school, and I think you've got it similar in Canada, ayoung enterprise scheme where you set up a little company and you make things and you do
(05:37):
the...
So I was the managing director and loved it, loved the organisation, the business angle.
And then I just thought, well, how can I merge the more business
side and operations with the technical side and came up and found a discipline inengineering called production engineering.
(06:05):
You don't have it in Canada.
You have manufacturing systems engineers, which is the closest thing to it, where youdesign uh equipment to go into factories, you specify the equipment, you create factories.
I really wanted to get into that.
(06:27):
in a way, my stepmother helped me get to that.
um so I embarked on a degree in production engineering.
Fortunately, my stepmother died and my father died, so I was very like on my own.
And I think for me,
(06:49):
and that we'll talk about resilience in moment, but when you're faced where you haven'treally got a family home and you're 18 years old.
and you've got an opportunity and my opportunity was at the time free education becausethe government paid for education and because I didn't have any money they provided a
(07:18):
bursary for me to live on so to me I've got lots to thank the UK government for at thetime because I think if I hadn't had that
opportunity or you know free education I wouldn't probably be here today and so going backto the drive and being resilient I knew that I didn't have a fallback it was on me to
(07:47):
succeed and so I threw everything at learning and did really well in my
program, ended up being a great engineer in the automotive industry.
Yes, I started off in the automotive industry.
(08:08):
I was uh in a first tier supplier making brakes, clutches, and steering systems as aproduction engineer.
And again, same thing happened.
My boss at the time.
He goes, Jane, there's a job here that you should, I'm you getting rid of me?
And he goes, no, this has got you written all over it.
(08:32):
And it was actually going back to university to become a research fellow, which again waspaid.
It was an opportunity to really get to grips with the advances of.
of what was happening in manufacturing, to widen my network.
(08:54):
And so I went back to university to do PhD.
And then whilst I was doing my PhD, I had to do some teaching.
And that's how I got to learn how wonderful it is to pass on.
knowledge to people and transform their lives.
(09:16):
So that, I know it's a bit of a lengthy journey, but that's how I got to where, you know.
Wow, you're even more incredible after I that story.
And we all have the UK government to thank for that.
was fascinating to hear your journey.
(09:38):
And you were a hardware engineer as well.
I can totally see why you have the passion for what you do.
Yeah, yeah, it's very ingrained in my values about how we look at educating, so yeah, itreally is.
So Jane, thank you for that background on the journey and really appreciate that.
(10:02):
You've been a powerful advocate and a trailblazer for work integrated learning.
Can you explain to the audience what it is and how you see work integrated learning shapehow students learn and contribute to the workplace?
Sure.
There's a spectrum of work integrated learning.
(10:25):
At the base roots it's a structured integration of real world experience into education.
And there's different degrees of work integrated learning.
So you've got the soft touch approach where you Kevin
(10:49):
I could invite you in to speak to our first year students about some of the projectsyou're working on.
that's a light touch approach to getting into the student journey, their education journeyabout...
uh
Kevin's doing this at IBM XYZ.
(11:09):
that's, and then you've got another way of, you might be doing a capstone.
So I've got a group of final year students and you have come along and you've got a realworld problem that your engineers have.
(11:29):
sort of been grappling with, but it's on a bit of the low burner, but let's give it tothese students to have a go at.
So that's another type of work, integrated learning.
Then there's, you can do an intern or a co-op where you might spend four months or 12months.
(11:53):
And then you've got,
the more fully integrated and we know them as apprenticeships.
So, or apprenticeship style learning when you're actually fully embedded in the workplaceand you're actually as a learner learning on the job and you're learning.
(12:18):
through an academic program.
because we've now got amazing technology, we can do a lot of blended learning so that theycan listen to things, listen to podcasts.
get AIQ rating, so can you summarise this and listen to it?
(12:40):
And then you can come to the university campus and be exposed to the latest research labsto do whatever.
So it's really blurring the workplace and the academic campus.
em
(13:01):
And the way it works is if you think about how we learn, we have passive learning andactive learning.
Passive learning, an example is...
listening, you know, it's like watching the TV.
You can't help yourself, but within two minutes you're thinking of something else.
(13:24):
know what I mean?
And today is the lecture and you know, most people are doing other things, right?
That's very passive learning.
And then an active learning is the ultimate, is
when you have to teach somebody else.
(13:44):
That's the most active learning because you really need to understand it and to be able tonavigate, well, Kevin, why are you struggling with that concept?
Because you're having to then get, uh think through.
So that's the most active approach.
(14:05):
Work integrated learning, in a way, it's a very active learning because
Because you're straight away in real time, virtually, with what you're learningacademically, theoretically, conceptually, you're seeing it in, oh, really, that's what
(14:28):
that means.
That's how it can shape things.
And so it helps the brain really embed that knowledge.
And so it's...
Work integrated learning and like an apprenticeship style.
It's more about amplification of what you would normally typically learn uh in a normalway of, or a typical way, should I say, of an academic programme at a university or
(14:58):
college.
Does that make sense?
I learned so much.
mean dating dating myself.
I remember first of all, I mean you have a beautiful campus here.
We are definitely in an exciting time.
I'm truly excited for the next generation of students.
You speak of passive learning.
(15:18):
I do remember that sitting in the lecture room itself, know, four or five hundred studentsin the lab.
Oh, wait, what about the notes?
And I can totally see active learning.
And then you'd cram everything.
And you only take in so much.
(15:40):
But this kind of learning is very, very effective.
Very effective.
So that's what it's about, essentially.
I reflect often on, hey, what I learned in university, how much of that is applicable inmy day-to-day job.
I graduated electrical engineering, now I'm doing SRE.
(16:03):
I would say the soft skills are problem solving curiosities there.
But a lot of the hard skills, I did not pick that up during school, but I can totally seea student in a work integrated learning environment.
It's very, it's 100 % applicable.
And I think that is such a good way of learning.
(16:25):
Be ready for what you
Yeah, so yeah, it's great to be em helping Canada, and it's not just Ontario, but Canada,think about these kinds of different ways of learning.
I don't think it's ever going to overtake, em you know, how we operate universities andwhat learning goes in there.
(16:54):
The work integrated learning is very new to North America.
It's the apprenticeship style.
mean, co-op and interns are big.
That's the way.
But again, with those, it's really good.
But it's not actually fully integrated into the curriculum.
(17:17):
So you might be lucky.
if you are studying something and then you at work and you go, oh my god, I'm all on, Ican do this or whatever, but they're not designed like that.
So, you know, it's.
m
kind of study, go out for six months, months, right?
(17:41):
So shifting topic to rethink the engineering education for work of tomorrow.
But the grounding question is, Jane, what does the work of tomorrow look like to you?
I think it comes back to what we were talking, or just briefly said that word aboutresilience.
(18:02):
And I think things are changing so rapidly and it's exponentially, it seems.
I don't know whether it is, but it's that.
It's just the way the world is.
And we have to accept that.
It's ever changing.
And so really...
(18:24):
It's about setting us up for accepting change and being resilient.
And that, I think, sets us up for a different way of how we think about educating.
Because how do we create resilient people?
(18:47):
going back to m my background,
had no choice to be resilient.
I could have been somebody else and it could have crushed me.
But again, it's that um drive and that acceptance of change.
(19:09):
So how do you do that in education?
And how do you do it in a business sense?
So I'm looking at it from a, you know, how to...
prepare the next generation to be resilient.
How are businesses doing that?
(19:32):
Be ready for the unexpected.
If I were to go back to my day job, the trait of being a good site reliability engineer isanticipate everything that can fail, will eventually fail and you can trip and fall but
(19:54):
you will get up and you will learn.
um I would say that's also the core principle for business to be ready.
It's kind of like innovation, you don't expect everything you try to just, you know, youquit the next chart, GPT everything you try, right?
There's gonna be times, there'll be often times you fail, but be okay with that, learnfrom that and keep on going and eventually you will succeed.
(20:22):
And so that is very similar to how we need to look at educating.
it's about, it's not about the passive learning.
It's about active learning when you put in the learner into a new scenario and giving thema safe space.
(20:51):
to think creatively, anticipate what everything can go wrong.
But you're not in a life and death situation.
But the assessment becomes important.
And this is where I think more work needs to be done.
(21:13):
Because at the moment, we're focused always on the knowledge.
Yes.
how do we assess somebody getting to that knowledge?
And how they act in different scenarios.
And it comes back to reflection, being aware of your learning and I was in a veryuncomfortable place and why was that?
(21:47):
Because if you don't...
get the learners to know how to reflect, particularly on these things about beingresilient.
And we'll probably talk about AI in a bit, you know, it's that shift.
It's not just about the knowledge attainment anymore.
(22:10):
Yeah, no, it's not.
It's where you win.
Let me just think about an important part about learning in organization is psychologicalsafety.
It's imagine if Jim won't have a problem goes to Kevin.
Kevin's like, why would you have that problem?
shouldn't have that problem.
(22:30):
Right.
And what's Jim going to do next?
Probably not going to ask.
How can you a safe environment where people feel okay to ask for help?
Supercritical.
and you mentioned about assessment for students.
Does the mindset of the culture of psychological safety apply to...
Yeah, absolutely.
(22:51):
um And I wouldn't say that we actively do it, um but at the moment I think this...
we're going through a uh transition, significant transition in education because AI...
(23:15):
Mm.
Do you know that that's person's work?
So, in a way, there's a pool of thought, school of thought of we've got to bring back thefinal exams, you know, because then we'll know that that person's actually, you know,
(23:39):
doing it, which is one thought, but...
Again, we know that examinations aren't what they're up to because you cram it and youforget it the next day or maybe a week, if that.
So then never been really good assessments for really does that person, do they reallyknow it?
(24:07):
Right.
And again, this brings me back to why I'm very passionate about work integrated learningbecause you can't hide.
Because you're doing things.
know, if things don't work, we know about it.
So why is that?
And again, it's learning.
(24:29):
It's a complex thing of how we learn.
Yeah, totally.
two teenagers, so I can totally see it.
One of them totally refused to use Charity Beauty Star and then they later embraced it asa source of reference, a point of view.
(24:49):
And he blossomed after that.
was really good to see.
uh I really like it.
But it is that challenge of how do we then make sure that it is that person's work.
(25:10):
it, I mean, it comes down to prompting, doesn't it?
This is a joke in the industry, we're all becoming prompt engineers.
That's a good term to use because you need to know the right questions.
(25:35):
it comes back to being uh a good engineer.
The hardest part of being an engineer is how to define that.
What's the problem?
Defining the problem.
Yeah.
That's the most hardest thing to do.
Yeah, and in a way, training everyone to be better problem engineers gets everyone betterat asking the right questions and drive that curiosity, drive that learning.
(26:04):
In a way, maybe we can transition to the industry challenges.
Here's an interesting one for you.
What has been the most surprising or most successful about your effort to embed industrychallenges into student learning?
What I really liked, and this is when I was designing the fully work integrated learningmodel at York, we have a process called the Trailblazer process where uh we, so we were
(26:38):
designing a program that,
has graduates who will become software developers, cyber security specialists and datascientists, AI data scientists.
And so it gave us an opportunity to bring together faculty, the academics, with employersof these graduates.
(27:07):
because you need software developers, cyber security and data scientists,
we had 15 senior technical level people from different industries and different sizesbecause the actual graduates can go and work in banks, they can work in manufacturing,
(27:33):
they can work in the ICT and the digital area.
work in a bakery, health, insurance, because they everywhere needs these kinds of people.
having these people from different sectors and whatever, so they weren't competitors.
(27:57):
And they sat down with us and we thrashed out what knowledge, skills and behaviours areyou expecting from these graduates.
When I was talking to faculty, there was a lot of skepticism because, you know, well, youknow, industry, they're just looking for today and...
(28:22):
You know, we probably end up with just a bunch of tools that they, you know, and thisisn't, you know, critical thinking about how wrong.
It was great to see when we workshopped.
So we had a couple of half-day workshops and how, you know, the employers looked at thingsvery, very long-term.
(28:49):
They were very...
interested in this, again, the ability for people to learn new, uh anticipate things thathaven't been anticipated.
That critical thinking, it was awesome.
(29:14):
so it's really, it's really brought academia and
employers and industry closer together, which I think is always a good thing.
We are, I we do interact, but to actually be hand in hand creating a program together,that's special.
(29:42):
Yeah, uh and I'm sure all those professionals, learn quite a bit in the workshop as well.
yeah, absolutely.
yeah, so I really enjoy that, seeing the magic.
is, it's...
It is magic, isn't it?
So we spoke about a need for deeper, more meaningful collaboration between universitiesand industry.
(30:08):
What does an ideal partnership look like to you?
It's long term.
Yeah, it's gotta be long term.
It's not, it shouldn't be just transactional.
(30:31):
And I think sometimes it can be.
we want talent.
give us your talent.
um And then you hear, well, the talent isn't good enough.
(30:53):
It's just something you hear.
You have responsibility for educating.
have responsibility.
So again, I think it's breaking that transactional and it's about meaningful partnersaround what
higher education can do and it isn't just about the next generation of talent.
(31:15):
It's our research, it's you being an uh advocate for supporting our students, giving backas an individual but also as part of your corporation.
And so it would be...
(31:37):
uh
built on partnerships that have the similar values as well.
I think that is very important.
Yeah, that resonates with me.
It's also just like within an organization with different teams or different organizationswithin a larger company, a true partnership is not to something over the fence, right?
(32:04):
Like transactional, but really partnership, collaborations.
Actually, one of my previous guys, I'll quote it, I'll see if I get it right.
I love this one.
He said...
Collaboration is when I go to you and knowing that by reaching out to you, I know you canhelp me succeed.
(32:26):
And I think that's sort of what we need to bring together.
And Alex, you mentioned a lot research.
I know we have a strong research relationship where um we can dream about and make happenwhat we think is coming up next.
uh
yeah.
And so the more that we can collaborate and partner with employers, our communities, umand get that context about learning, so it's not an ivory tower, it's actually, we're here
(33:08):
to help.
our communities because we're educating to help our communities.
um This is the way forward.
Yeah, I totally think so.
And maybe even up level the active learning to be, is this the word, applied learning?
Yeah, So learning on the job.
(33:28):
Absolutely.
Very interchangeable.
Feel free to correct me on my terminology.
it's fine.
You've been too kind.
uh So, if I were to go from the academia, the industry, to developing resilient engineers,in addition to technical expertise, what human or soft skills do you see as essential for
(33:57):
students to build on so they can be resilient for their career journey?
Words that for me describe developing resilience is to be empathetic.
So again, if you know and can see around you and have that, you know, feeling.
(34:25):
things become less as surprise to you because you have that innate ability to see what'sgoing on.
So it's not like, whoa, whoa.
Like blindsided me.
Communication is important.
(34:49):
I think being curious.
the more you learn and go, oh, what's that?
And again, it's all about not being surprised.
And then it becomes traumatic about change and whatever.
(35:10):
Because it's just normal every day, the way you behave is, oh, I didn't know about that.
And being self-aware as well.
So it's again, and again that they all tie in communication, being empathetic.
(35:32):
It does stem from being self aware about how you are, are you an active listener as partof the communication.
So all these things, think, are soft skills that are needed and they're hard.
(35:55):
There should be hard skills.
oh
I really like you brought up empathy because part of, again, what we do, I would say uh inthe profession of SRE, learning about disruptions is to be empathetic, to put ourselves in
(36:19):
someone else's shoes.
What were they thinking?
What was the pressure under when they faced this incident, this disruption?
oh
point of view to see collectively how we can make it better.
And when you have empathy, you also have psychological safety because you were lessblameful of someone else.
(36:42):
Emphasize with what they had to say.
Trying to walk in their shoes about what happened.
And I agree with you.
and wish maybe that's a question is that a skill that's been taught I know it's kind ofthe self skill how are self skills like that
(37:05):
But yeah, I mean, we do do a lot of project based learning or problem based learning andparticularly in teams and there's opportunities to reflect and it comes back to the
reflection piece because once you start to tease out a situation
(37:33):
that didn't go right, well maybe one of the conclusions was I wasn't that empathetic.
So how can we then support the learner to actually learn about being more empathetic,which again is about listening and getting feedback from people and being mentored from
(38:00):
people who...
have good skills at that, it all plays a part.
I think setting the...
the environment to have a learner experiencing interactions with people and thenreflecting is what we do.
(38:30):
That's how we don't teach it.
It's hard to teach.
It's like, how do you teach ethics?
It's all
we love to know that?
It's always bothered me about, we do a course in ethics, really?
No, the way to do really, really appreciate ethics is when you put people in a situationand they have to make an ethical judgement.
(39:00):
You have to lift this word.
And again, we can devise, you know, contexts that actually put people in a very, you know,not a clean cut decision.
(39:21):
And we can do that in a safe space.
Yeah.
And that is how you build these types of skills.
It's not about, I'm going to write an ethics exam and quote code 23.56 on da, da, da.
(39:45):
I mean, you need to know what you're bound by.
But the hard bit is...
you're in that situation and you have to experience it and you have to understand why youmade that decision.
Yeah, and for someone to change their behavior to be ethical, they had to fundamentallybelieve it.
(40:14):
And the consequences.
So, Jane, we really appreciate the journey you took us through.
A few closing reflections.
If you could redesign how we prepare people for the future work from the guanla, wherewould you begin?
Quite a large question.
(40:40):
Look, the way things are changing, it's constant and I think we start off the conversationwith, know, it seems exponential and so learning never stops.
So how do we then think about as individuals
(41:00):
that we're always learning and acquiring knowledge and new skills.
And so I think we have to accept that learning is continuous.
And I don't know whether even government policies are actually seen through that light oflearning is continuous.
(41:27):
again, learning is very personalised.
We all learn differently at different rates.
So we're trying to adapt to that, but we could do a lot more.
A lot of the conversation we've talked about, it's very apparent that learning has to beconnected to the real world.
(41:48):
Because again, it amplifies the conceptual world, the...
the theoretical world, it really does do that.
I still am a great believer of breaking down the silos between education and work.
(42:10):
And if we can develop more blended approaches together throughout somebody's life.
So...
You're not just, we're not just talking about 18 year olds, 25 year olds.
I'm talking about 50 year olds, 60 year olds.
(42:34):
Because everybody has to work and earn and, you know, to survive today's life.
So if we can bring learning to the workplace, then it allows...
us to continuously learn together.
(42:57):
And so that is the challenge and I would like to see more and more of that happening.
Yeah, me too.
And yeah, let's definitely make sure we partner on that to make it happen.
And finally, what advice would you offer to young engineers who want to stay relevant,resilient, and impactful in a world that won't stop?
(43:30):
I'd say be curious, that keeps coming up time and time again.
Don't accept the status quo.
That means being brave really.
I think be true to your values.
(43:52):
I've always
made decisions based on my values and I still do to that day because at the end of the dayyou might make the wrong decision but if you know truly what you know there's it's in your
(44:13):
heart that that was the right decision then that is important particularly as you go intoleadership.
I would say if you have opportunities just go with it.
I've moved to three countries, had opportunities to do that.
(44:35):
It was scary.
I didn't know what was going to happen, but it always works out some way.
So I think that.
em I think...
Everybody goes, did you have a five-year plan?
No.
(44:55):
No.
Life doesn't work like
it's always throws things at you that you really didn't anticipate like your job.
You just got to go with it and just do your best and figure it out.
So don't pressure yourself.
(45:18):
don't be too hard on yourself.
And yeah, I think to be resilient, you just accept these sorts of things and just thatwillingness to go, will pass, whatever's happening, and we'll get through it and come out
(45:45):
the other end better for it, actually.
And I think that I've had some awful things happen in my life, but...
oh in a way it's made me who I am.
So, you know, that's just the way it is.
(46:07):
That's life.
Yeah, definitely.
Jane, thank you so much.
Thank you for being vulnerable here and sharing your words of wisdom.
So there you go, ladies and gentlemen, being curious, being resilient, and don't be afraidto try something new.
(46:27):
Thank you, Jane.
And I'd like to thank you, the audience, for listening.
Be sure to visit sreomlad.com for more conversations on how the practice of SRE can helpyou achieve success for your business and your clients.
And remember, resilience isn't built in the heat of an incident or in a single moment.
(46:52):
It's forced through how we learn, collaborate, and support each other every day.
So keep asking questions, keep sharing your perspectives, and keep making your own SREomelette.
See you in the next episode.
What knowledge, skills and behaviours are you expecting from these graduates?
The employers looked at things very, very long term.
They were very interested in the ability for people to learn new, anticipate things thathaven't been anticipated.
(00:26):
That critical thinking, it was awesome.
It's really brought academia and employers and industry closer together, which I think isalways a good thing.
We are, I mean, we do interact, but to actually be hand in hand creating a programtogether, that's special.
(00:58):
Welcome back to another episode of Make Of the SRE Omelette Podcast.
Today we're joined by a truly visionary leader in engineering education,
Dr. Jane Goodyer.
She's the Dean of Lassonde School of Engineering at York University and a driving forcebehind Canada's first fully work integrated digital technologies degree from New Zealand
(01:21):
to UK to Canada.
Jane has reimagined how we prepare the next generation of technical talent, not just forthe jobs of today, but for the work of tomorrow.
Today, we're digging into something I think all SREs, site reliability engineers, andreally all professionals should be thinking about how do we build a resilient skill set
(01:46):
for the work environment that's constantly shifting.
Jane, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Kevin.
It's great to be here.
And yeah, I'm looking forward to the chat.
So, Jared, you had such an incredible bio, so want to make sure I get it right by readingit out.
So, a couple questions to open this.
How did you get into this field and why do you love what you do?
(02:11):
Good question.
I started out from a working class background.
never thought that, I didn't even know what a university was, never mind degrees.
unfortunately my mother died when I was 10 years old.
(02:37):
At that time, my father was obviously having a bit of a hard time with two young kids.
We were moving around a lot and I didn't really have much guidance because it was justabout existing.
And um then my dad remarried and it was a very, how can I say, a time of your life as anearly teenager when you've been influenced a lot.
(03:06):
you
lovely woman, my stepmother, she was that good influence and for her she was quitedifferent because she was illiterate until she was in her mid-forties and so she
understood the value of education and at the time she knew that I was fairly clever, Idon't know why.
(03:38):
And so she was encouraging me at school and
she worked as an assembly operator in a factory.
so because you're only influenced by what you know, she goes, Jane, I think you'd bereally good coming to work at my factory as an apprentice.
(04:01):
Yeah, that sounds good.
know, nobody else is telling me anything else.
So.
um
And I said, well, how do I get into your business then?
Because they were making electrical relays and things like that.
So I thought, electrical engineering.
(04:23):
And then what happened when I didn't get any help at high school, they said, no, if youwant to be an engineer, you need to do Latin.
drop your physics.
So it was just so hard to get into it.
And so I ignored what they said, which is, this is going to be a theme through today aboutjust ignore it.
(04:52):
Just do what you feel is right.
So I ended up doing good at when I was 16 years of age.
take your...
uh
you're leaving school exams and they the school said actually did quite well stay on atschool and do your more advanced levels to maybe go to university.
(05:13):
was like you know but I want to be an apprentice and so the the company said oh you knowcarry on
And at the time, there was a high school, and I think you've got it similar in Canada, ayoung enterprise scheme where you set up a little company and you make things and you do
(05:37):
the...
So I was the managing director and loved it, loved the organisation, the business angle.
And then I just thought, well, how can I merge the more business
side and operations with the technical side and came up and found a discipline inengineering called production engineering.
(06:05):
You don't have it in Canada.
You have manufacturing systems engineers, which is the closest thing to it, where youdesign uh equipment to go into factories, you specify the equipment, you create factories.
I really wanted to get into that.
(06:27):
in a way, my stepmother helped me get to that.
um so I embarked on a degree in production engineering.
Fortunately, my stepmother died and my father died, so I was very like on my own.
And I think for me,
(06:49):
and that we'll talk about resilience in moment, but when you're faced where you haven'treally got a family home and you're 18 years old.
and you've got an opportunity and my opportunity was at the time free education becausethe government paid for education and because I didn't have any money they provided a
(07:18):
bursary for me to live on so to me I've got lots to thank the UK government for at thetime because I think if I hadn't had that
opportunity or you know free education I wouldn't probably be here today and so going backto the drive and being resilient I knew that I didn't have a fallback it was on me to
(07:47):
succeed and so I threw everything at learning and did really well in my
program, ended up being a great engineer in the automotive industry.
Yes, I started off in the automotive industry.
(08:08):
I was uh in a first tier supplier making brakes, clutches, and steering systems as aproduction engineer.
And again, same thing happened.
My boss at the time.
He goes, Jane, there's a job here that you should, I'm you getting rid of me?
And he goes, no, this has got you written all over it.
(08:32):
And it was actually going back to university to become a research fellow, which again waspaid.
It was an opportunity to really get to grips with the advances of.
of what was happening in manufacturing, to widen my network.
(08:54):
And so I went back to university to do PhD.
And then whilst I was doing my PhD, I had to do some teaching.
And that's how I got to learn how wonderful it is to pass on.
knowledge to people and transform their lives.
(09:16):
So that, I know it's a bit of a lengthy journey, but that's how I got to where, you know.
Wow, you're even more incredible after I that story.
And we all have the UK government to thank for that.
was fascinating to hear your journey.
(09:38):
And you were a hardware engineer as well.
I can totally see why you have the passion for what you do.
Yeah, yeah, it's very ingrained in my values about how we look at educating, so yeah, itreally is.
So Jane, thank you for that background on the journey and really appreciate that.
(10:02):
You've been a powerful advocate and a trailblazer for work integrated learning.
Can you explain to the audience what it is and how you see work integrated learning shapehow students learn and contribute to the workplace?
Sure.
There's a spectrum of work integrated learning.
(10:25):
At the base roots it's a structured integration of real world experience into education.
And there's different degrees of work integrated learning.
So you've got the soft touch approach where you Kevin
(10:49):
I could invite you in to speak to our first year students about some of the projectsyou're working on.
that's a light touch approach to getting into the student journey, their education journeyabout...
uh
Kevin's doing this at IBM XYZ.
(11:09):
that's, and then you've got another way of, you might be doing a capstone.
So I've got a group of final year students and you have come along and you've got a realworld problem that your engineers have.
(11:29):
sort of been grappling with, but it's on a bit of the low burner, but let's give it tothese students to have a go at.
So that's another type of work, integrated learning.
Then there's, you can do an intern or a co-op where you might spend four months or 12months.
(11:53):
And then you've got,
the more fully integrated and we know them as apprenticeships.
So, or apprenticeship style learning when you're actually fully embedded in the workplaceand you're actually as a learner learning on the job and you're learning.
(12:18):
through an academic program.
because we've now got amazing technology, we can do a lot of blended learning so that theycan listen to things, listen to podcasts.
get AIQ rating, so can you summarise this and listen to it?
(12:40):
And then you can come to the university campus and be exposed to the latest research labsto do whatever.
So it's really blurring the workplace and the academic campus.
em
(13:01):
And the way it works is if you think about how we learn, we have passive learning andactive learning.
Passive learning, an example is...
listening, you know, it's like watching the TV.
You can't help yourself, but within two minutes you're thinking of something else.
(13:24):
know what I mean?
And today is the lecture and you know, most people are doing other things, right?
That's very passive learning.
And then an active learning is the ultimate, is
when you have to teach somebody else.
(13:44):
That's the most active learning because you really need to understand it and to be able tonavigate, well, Kevin, why are you struggling with that concept?
Because you're having to then get, uh think through.
So that's the most active approach.
(14:05):
Work integrated learning, in a way, it's a very active learning because
Because you're straight away in real time, virtually, with what you're learningacademically, theoretically, conceptually, you're seeing it in, oh, really, that's what
(14:28):
that means.
That's how it can shape things.
And so it helps the brain really embed that knowledge.
And so it's...
Work integrated learning and like an apprenticeship style.
It's more about amplification of what you would normally typically learn uh in a normalway of, or a typical way, should I say, of an academic programme at a university or
(14:58):
college.
Does that make sense?
I learned so much.
mean dating dating myself.
I remember first of all, I mean you have a beautiful campus here.
We are definitely in an exciting time.
I'm truly excited for the next generation of students.
You speak of passive learning.
(15:18):
I do remember that sitting in the lecture room itself, know, four or five hundred studentsin the lab.
Oh, wait, what about the notes?
And I can totally see active learning.
And then you'd cram everything.
And you only take in so much.
(15:40):
But this kind of learning is very, very effective.
Very effective.
So that's what it's about, essentially.
I reflect often on, hey, what I learned in university, how much of that is applicable inmy day-to-day job.
I graduated electrical engineering, now I'm doing SRE.
(16:03):
I would say the soft skills are problem solving curiosities there.
But a lot of the hard skills, I did not pick that up during school, but I can totally seea student in a work integrated learning environment.
It's very, it's 100 % applicable.
And I think that is such a good way of learning.
(16:25):
Be ready for what you
Yeah, so yeah, it's great to be em helping Canada, and it's not just Ontario, but Canada,think about these kinds of different ways of learning.
I don't think it's ever going to overtake, em you know, how we operate universities andwhat learning goes in there.
(16:54):
The work integrated learning is very new to North America.
It's the apprenticeship style.
mean, co-op and interns are big.
That's the way.
But again, with those, it's really good.
But it's not actually fully integrated into the curriculum.
(17:17):
So you might be lucky.
if you are studying something and then you at work and you go, oh my god, I'm all on, Ican do this or whatever, but they're not designed like that.
So, you know, it's.
m
kind of study, go out for six months, months, right?
(17:41):
So shifting topic to rethink the engineering education for work of tomorrow.
But the grounding question is, Jane, what does the work of tomorrow look like to you?
I think it comes back to what we were talking, or just briefly said that word aboutresilience.
(18:02):
And I think things are changing so rapidly and it's exponentially, it seems.
I don't know whether it is, but it's that.
It's just the way the world is.
And we have to accept that.
It's ever changing.
And so really...
(18:24):
It's about setting us up for accepting change and being resilient.
And that, I think, sets us up for a different way of how we think about educating.
Because how do we create resilient people?
(18:47):
going back to m my background,
had no choice to be resilient.
I could have been somebody else and it could have crushed me.
But again, it's that um drive and that acceptance of change.
(19:09):
So how do you do that in education?
And how do you do it in a business sense?
So I'm looking at it from a, you know, how to...
prepare the next generation to be resilient.
How are businesses doing that?
(19:32):
Be ready for the unexpected.
If I were to go back to my day job, the trait of being a good site reliability engineer isanticipate everything that can fail, will eventually fail and you can trip and fall but
(19:54):
you will get up and you will learn.
um I would say that's also the core principle for business to be ready.
It's kind of like innovation, you don't expect everything you try to just, you know, youquit the next chart, GPT everything you try, right?
There's gonna be times, there'll be often times you fail, but be okay with that, learnfrom that and keep on going and eventually you will succeed.
(20:22):
And so that is very similar to how we need to look at educating.
it's about, it's not about the passive learning.
It's about active learning when you put in the learner into a new scenario and giving thema safe space.
(20:51):
to think creatively, anticipate what everything can go wrong.
But you're not in a life and death situation.
But the assessment becomes important.
And this is where I think more work needs to be done.
(21:13):
Because at the moment, we're focused always on the knowledge.
Yes.
how do we assess somebody getting to that knowledge?
And how they act in different scenarios.
And it comes back to reflection, being aware of your learning and I was in a veryuncomfortable place and why was that?
(21:47):
Because if you don't...
get the learners to know how to reflect, particularly on these things about beingresilient.
And we'll probably talk about AI in a bit, you know, it's that shift.
It's not just about the knowledge attainment anymore.
(22:10):
Yeah, no, it's not.
It's where you win.
Let me just think about an important part about learning in organization is psychologicalsafety.
It's imagine if Jim won't have a problem goes to Kevin.
Kevin's like, why would you have that problem?
shouldn't have that problem.
(22:30):
Right.
And what's Jim going to do next?
Probably not going to ask.
How can you a safe environment where people feel okay to ask for help?
Supercritical.
and you mentioned about assessment for students.
Does the mindset of the culture of psychological safety apply to...
Yeah, absolutely.
(22:51):
um And I wouldn't say that we actively do it, um but at the moment I think this...
we're going through a uh transition, significant transition in education because AI...
(23:15):
Mm.
Do you know that that's person's work?
So, in a way, there's a pool of thought, school of thought of we've got to bring back thefinal exams, you know, because then we'll know that that person's actually, you know,
(23:39):
doing it, which is one thought, but...
Again, we know that examinations aren't what they're up to because you cram it and youforget it the next day or maybe a week, if that.
So then never been really good assessments for really does that person, do they reallyknow it?
(24:07):
Right.
And again, this brings me back to why I'm very passionate about work integrated learningbecause you can't hide.
Because you're doing things.
know, if things don't work, we know about it.
So why is that?
And again, it's learning.
(24:29):
It's a complex thing of how we learn.
Yeah, totally.
two teenagers, so I can totally see it.
One of them totally refused to use Charity Beauty Star and then they later embraced it asa source of reference, a point of view.
(24:49):
And he blossomed after that.
was really good to see.
uh I really like it.
But it is that challenge of how do we then make sure that it is that person's work.
(25:10):
it, I mean, it comes down to prompting, doesn't it?
This is a joke in the industry, we're all becoming prompt engineers.
That's a good term to use because you need to know the right questions.
(25:35):
it comes back to being uh a good engineer.
The hardest part of being an engineer is how to define that.
What's the problem?
Defining the problem.
Yeah.
That's the most hardest thing to do.
Yeah, and in a way, training everyone to be better problem engineers gets everyone betterat asking the right questions and drive that curiosity, drive that learning.
(26:04):
In a way, maybe we can transition to the industry challenges.
Here's an interesting one for you.
What has been the most surprising or most successful about your effort to embed industrychallenges into student learning?
What I really liked, and this is when I was designing the fully work integrated learningmodel at York, we have a process called the Trailblazer process where uh we, so we were
(26:38):
designing a program that,
has graduates who will become software developers, cyber security specialists and datascientists, AI data scientists.
And so it gave us an opportunity to bring together faculty, the academics, with employersof these graduates.
(27:07):
because you need software developers, cyber security and data scientists,
we had 15 senior technical level people from different industries and different sizesbecause the actual graduates can go and work in banks, they can work in manufacturing,
(27:33):
they can work in the ICT and the digital area.
work in a bakery, health, insurance, because they everywhere needs these kinds of people.
having these people from different sectors and whatever, so they weren't competitors.
(27:57):
And they sat down with us and we thrashed out what knowledge, skills and behaviours areyou expecting from these graduates.
When I was talking to faculty, there was a lot of skepticism because, you know, well, youknow, industry, they're just looking for today and...
(28:22):
You know, we probably end up with just a bunch of tools that they, you know, and thisisn't, you know, critical thinking about how wrong.
It was great to see when we workshopped.
So we had a couple of half-day workshops and how, you know, the employers looked at thingsvery, very long-term.
(28:49):
They were very...
interested in this, again, the ability for people to learn new, uh anticipate things thathaven't been anticipated.
That critical thinking, it was awesome.
(29:14):
so it's really, it's really brought academia and
employers and industry closer together, which I think is always a good thing.
We are, I we do interact, but to actually be hand in hand creating a program together,that's special.
(29:42):
Yeah, uh and I'm sure all those professionals, learn quite a bit in the workshop as well.
yeah, absolutely.
yeah, so I really enjoy that, seeing the magic.
is, it's...
It is magic, isn't it?
So we spoke about a need for deeper, more meaningful collaboration between universitiesand industry.
(30:08):
What does an ideal partnership look like to you?
It's long term.
Yeah, it's gotta be long term.
It's not, it shouldn't be just transactional.
(30:31):
And I think sometimes it can be.
we want talent.
give us your talent.
um And then you hear, well, the talent isn't good enough.
(30:53):
It's just something you hear.
You have responsibility for educating.
have responsibility.
So again, I think it's breaking that transactional and it's about meaningful partnersaround what
higher education can do and it isn't just about the next generation of talent.
(31:15):
It's our research, it's you being an uh advocate for supporting our students, giving backas an individual but also as part of your corporation.
And so it would be...
(31:37):
uh
built on partnerships that have the similar values as well.
I think that is very important.
Yeah, that resonates with me.
It's also just like within an organization with different teams or different organizationswithin a larger company, a true partnership is not to something over the fence, right?
(32:04):
Like transactional, but really partnership, collaborations.
Actually, one of my previous guys, I'll quote it, I'll see if I get it right.
I love this one.
He said...
Collaboration is when I go to you and knowing that by reaching out to you, I know you canhelp me succeed.
(32:26):
And I think that's sort of what we need to bring together.
And Alex, you mentioned a lot research.
I know we have a strong research relationship where um we can dream about and make happenwhat we think is coming up next.
uh
yeah.
And so the more that we can collaborate and partner with employers, our communities, umand get that context about learning, so it's not an ivory tower, it's actually, we're here
(33:08):
to help.
our communities because we're educating to help our communities.
um This is the way forward.
Yeah, I totally think so.
And maybe even up level the active learning to be, is this the word, applied learning?
Yeah, So learning on the job.
(33:28):
Absolutely.
Very interchangeable.
Feel free to correct me on my terminology.
it's fine.
You've been too kind.
uh So, if I were to go from the academia, the industry, to developing resilient engineers,in addition to technical expertise, what human or soft skills do you see as essential for
(33:57):
students to build on so they can be resilient for their career journey?
Words that for me describe developing resilience is to be empathetic.
So again, if you know and can see around you and have that, you know, feeling.
(34:25):
things become less as surprise to you because you have that innate ability to see what'sgoing on.
So it's not like, whoa, whoa.
Like blindsided me.
Communication is important.
(34:49):
I think being curious.
the more you learn and go, oh, what's that?
And again, it's all about not being surprised.
And then it becomes traumatic about change and whatever.
(35:10):
Because it's just normal every day, the way you behave is, oh, I didn't know about that.
And being self-aware as well.
So it's again, and again that they all tie in communication, being empathetic.
(35:32):
It does stem from being self aware about how you are, are you an active listener as partof the communication.
So all these things, think, are soft skills that are needed and they're hard.
(35:55):
There should be hard skills.
oh
I really like you brought up empathy because part of, again, what we do, I would say uh inthe profession of SRE, learning about disruptions is to be empathetic, to put ourselves in
(36:19):
someone else's shoes.
What were they thinking?
What was the pressure under when they faced this incident, this disruption?
oh
point of view to see collectively how we can make it better.
And when you have empathy, you also have psychological safety because you were lessblameful of someone else.
(36:42):
Emphasize with what they had to say.
Trying to walk in their shoes about what happened.
And I agree with you.
and wish maybe that's a question is that a skill that's been taught I know it's kind ofthe self skill how are self skills like that
(37:05):
But yeah, I mean, we do do a lot of project based learning or problem based learning andparticularly in teams and there's opportunities to reflect and it comes back to the
reflection piece because once you start to tease out a situation
(37:33):
that didn't go right, well maybe one of the conclusions was I wasn't that empathetic.
So how can we then support the learner to actually learn about being more empathetic,which again is about listening and getting feedback from people and being mentored from
(38:00):
people who...
have good skills at that, it all plays a part.
I think setting the...
the environment to have a learner experiencing interactions with people and thenreflecting is what we do.
(38:30):
That's how we don't teach it.
It's hard to teach.
It's like, how do you teach ethics?
It's all
we love to know that?
It's always bothered me about, we do a course in ethics, really?
No, the way to do really, really appreciate ethics is when you put people in a situationand they have to make an ethical judgement.
(39:00):
You have to lift this word.
And again, we can devise, you know, contexts that actually put people in a very, you know,not a clean cut decision.
(39:21):
And we can do that in a safe space.
Yeah.
And that is how you build these types of skills.
It's not about, I'm going to write an ethics exam and quote code 23.56 on da, da, da.
(39:45):
I mean, you need to know what you're bound by.
But the hard bit is...
you're in that situation and you have to experience it and you have to understand why youmade that decision.
Yeah, and for someone to change their behavior to be ethical, they had to fundamentallybelieve it.
(40:14):
And the consequences.
So, Jane, we really appreciate the journey you took us through.
A few closing reflections.
If you could redesign how we prepare people for the future work from the guanla, wherewould you begin?
Quite a large question.
(40:40):
Look, the way things are changing, it's constant and I think we start off the conversationwith, know, it seems exponential and so learning never stops.
So how do we then think about as individuals
(41:00):
that we're always learning and acquiring knowledge and new skills.
And so I think we have to accept that learning is continuous.
And I don't know whether even government policies are actually seen through that light oflearning is continuous.
(41:27):
again, learning is very personalised.
We all learn differently at different rates.
So we're trying to adapt to that, but we could do a lot more.
A lot of the conversation we've talked about, it's very apparent that learning has to beconnected to the real world.
(41:48):
Because again, it amplifies the conceptual world, the...
the theoretical world, it really does do that.
I still am a great believer of breaking down the silos between education and work.
(42:10):
And if we can develop more blended approaches together throughout somebody's life.
So...
You're not just, we're not just talking about 18 year olds, 25 year olds.
I'm talking about 50 year olds, 60 year olds.
(42:34):
Because everybody has to work and earn and, you know, to survive today's life.
So if we can bring learning to the workplace, then it allows...
us to continuously learn together.
(42:57):
And so that is the challenge and I would like to see more and more of that happening.
Yeah, me too.
And yeah, let's definitely make sure we partner on that to make it happen.
And finally, what advice would you offer to young engineers who want to stay relevant,resilient, and impactful in a world that won't stop?
(43:30):
I'd say be curious, that keeps coming up time and time again.
Don't accept the status quo.
That means being brave really.
I think be true to your values.
(43:52):
I've always
made decisions based on my values and I still do to that day because at the end of the dayyou might make the wrong decision but if you know truly what you know there's it's in your
(44:13):
heart that that was the right decision then that is important particularly as you go intoleadership.
I would say if you have opportunities just go with it.
I've moved to three countries, had opportunities to do that.
(44:35):
It was scary.
I didn't know what was going to happen, but it always works out some way.
So I think that.
em I think...
Everybody goes, did you have a five-year plan?
No.
(44:55):
No.
Life doesn't work like
it's always throws things at you that you really didn't anticipate like your job.
You just got to go with it and just do your best and figure it out.
So don't pressure yourself.
(45:18):
don't be too hard on yourself.
And yeah, I think to be resilient, you just accept these sorts of things and just thatwillingness to go, will pass, whatever's happening, and we'll get through it and come out
(45:45):
the other end better for it, actually.
And I think that I've had some awful things happen in my life, but...
oh in a way it's made me who I am.
So, you know, that's just the way it is.
(46:07):
That's life.
Yeah, definitely.
Jane, thank you so much.
Thank you for being vulnerable here and sharing your words of wisdom.
So there you go, ladies and gentlemen, being curious, being resilient, and don't be afraidto try something new.
(46:27):
Thank you, Jane.
And I'd like to thank you, the audience, for listening.
Be sure to visit sreomlad.com for more conversations on how the practice of SRE can helpyou achieve success for your business and your clients.
And remember, resilience isn't built in the heat of an incident or in a single moment.
(46:52):
It's forced through how we learn, collaborate, and support each other every day.
So keep asking questions, keep sharing your perspectives, and keep making your own SREomelette.
See you in the next episode.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.