Education & Classes in North Vancouver

Two campuses with three specific focuses—massage therapy, aesthetics and laser, and hair design—form Utopia Academy, where students steep their minds in healthcare instruction from a skilled faculty. The registered and accredited programs guide students toward flourishing careers by building skills through interactive clinics that are open to the public. Under careful supervision, students gain tangible field experience as they knead away tension, perform anti-aging peels, or style the coiffures of an entire poodle wedding party.

Micah, Luch, and Alicia of Metropolitan Bartending School draw on over a decade of bartending chops apiece to impart the art of alcoholic alchemy. Students enrolled in at-home or comprehensive certification courses might recognize Micah Dew as the resident drinkspert of the Province newspaper, or remember his dazzling “Extreme Bartending” performance of juggling and fire-breathing for a stunned Rachel Ray. Between also working a bartending job five nights a week at The Roxy Vancouver, Micah lends industry-veterans Luch and Alicia a hand in leading a lineup of diverse classes and workshops. The sessions range from wine-tasting seminars to Serving It Right certification, a legal necessity in British Columbia. All of these classes take place behind real bars at Metropolitan Bartending School's facilities, equipped with the most commonly used liquor bottles, a POS training-mode system for running tabs, and an animatronic priest, rabbi, and minister.

The seasoned instructors at Fly Without Fear aim to prove that flying is one of the safest ways to travel, ridding passengers of airborne anxiety through in-depth seminars and practical simulations. In each class, instructors review the basics of airplane technology, from the inner workings of jet engines to the physics of wing flaps, rudders, and ailerons. After explaining the effects of inclement weather and turbulence, they demystify the process of a professional pilot’s training, which includes flight simulators and medical testing to determine whether they’re eligible to have wings grafted directly onto their backs. Within a capsule modelled after a Boeing 737 Next Generation cockpit, students take the helm of a virtual aircraft themselves, manoeuvring it through starting procedures, takeoff, cruising, and landing.

Friends, business partners, and educators Karen Lorena Parker and Katherine Keating had a shared vision of holistic, community-based learning. Combining Parker's 15 years of classroom experience and Keating's knack for program design and entrepreneurship, they created DreamIndigo Society, where students can incorporate the arts and sciences into a comprehensive, experiential learning adventure. While youngsters conduct science experiments in summer camp or develop leadership skills that will come in handy when leading a successful debate team or founding a successful debate team made up of neighbourhood dogs, they're also stealthily becoming well-rounded members of society.