The hands-on NAIT student experience.
By Krish Desai on April 23, 2025
When it comes to most post-secondary education in Edmonton, most institutions make you take lots of notes as a major part of their learning experience. On top of that are frequent tests, which come with usually high levels of student stress. This style of learning often lacks active engagement and practices a lot of just how to regurgitate information.
NAIT is one among many institutions that put more of an emphasis on hands-on learning with its academics. This is one of the many great things you discover as a first semester student at NAIT.
During my first semester in the Radio & Television program, I quickly discovered the workload consisted of a little bit of notetaking, but instead of getting overwhelmed with tests, we got to take the information we learned and apply it in hands-on projects. These ranged from making our own radio commercial, to filming our own mini doc with professional equipment, to even posting our own social media content. These projects allowed students to express their own creative talent with the information and structure taught to them in class.
Even outside of Radio & Television, most courses at NAIT offer hands-on learning. This is something that I’ve always loved about NAIT. Seeing it firsthand, however, and experiencing this style of education is definitely my favourite highlight of being a student at NAIT. Compared to high school, it feels like a big step forward and a nice change of pace from all the quizzes and long lectures. This is an experience most other post-secondary institutions don’t offer, but rather they use the same style of shoving information down your throats as high school with lectures, notes, and tests.
Overall, the hands-on projects really add an enjoyable and effective sense of learning to each project and are certainly a big reason why NAIT is such a great school. They really contribute to the learning experience at NAIT and are the main driving factor to the great student life here. As the semester comes to an end and students are feeling the pressure of finals, this kind of learning really helps prevent burnout.