Earning a master’s degree while also keeping up with a busy family life, a full-time job and helping a spouse run the family business is not for the faint of heart, but for Damien Burns there are no regrets thanks to a partnership between Yukon College and Cape Breton University.

Burns is part of the first cohort to earn his master’s of business administration in community economic development from CBU through Yukon College. The two-year program is being offered a second time beginning this fall.

Through the program Burns said he was able to apply what he learned directly to his job with the government and he is seeing new potential entrepreneurial opportunities as well (though it’s too early for him to specify what they might be).

“It exceeded my expectations,” he said in a recent interview. “This is a very innovative way of delivering an MBA.”

Burns had been looking at furthering his education for some time through online programs. Most of the online programs he was interested in would have been difficult with his family life, some that would require travel at various points in the program.

When he learned he could earn his MBA at Yukon College, it didn’t take him long to look a little further into the program and submit his application.

Rather than doing a few courses at once, the program delivers one course at a time over a period of four to six weeks with students attending weekend sessions every other week. As Burns described that means students can focus on one subject at a time with a break in between courses.

The program also saw a high calibre of professors from across the country fly in to Whitehorse to deliver their particular course. Burns said it meant hearing from instructors from not only CBU, but also from schools like Simon Fraser University, the University of Alberta and more.

Depending on the course, Burns estimated he spent anywhere between 10 and 15 hours a week on assignments and the like. As he noted, some courses were easier than others, though all seemed to have some application to his career.

A course on how global forces influence local economies is proving useful in his work for the government, while studying marketing is helping with the business he and his wife Betty Skoke Burns owns — Angellina’s Toy Boutique.

The local delivery of the program also means that issues specific to the Yukon make their way into classroom discussions and projects, making the program that much more relevant.

“It is a unique opportunity to learn in your own town and discuss real Yukon issues with fellow students,” Burns said.

Another graduate, Jordan Stackhouse, who works for the City of Whitehorse as its economic development officer, also praised the program, noting he’s come out of it with a greater depth of knowledge he now applies to his job.

“For me it was a perfect opportunity,” he said.

He hadn’t been looking for more educational opportunities at the time, but when he saw the ad for the program and realized he could earn his master’s degree in town while continuing to work full-time and balancing his family life, it was an opportunity he could not pass up.

He admits its not easy to earn a degree while balancing all those other aspects of life.

However, he also came out with more skills in critical thinking and understanding of various issues. It has made him better able to craft strategies to deal with issues as they come up in his daily work, he said.

Program details are available online at www.cbu.ca/mba