The Fisheries and Aquaculture Technology Diploma is designed to develop well-rounded technologists with a broad background in the practical and academic skills of fish and invertebrate culture, fisheries habitat and fish stock assessment, fisheries regulations, production management, and environmental control and planning. The first year provides a foundation in such basic conceptual areas as statistics, biology, English, habitats of fish and fish rearing methods. There is a weekly practicum, in which you are sent into the field for a day to work in various aquacultural, fisheries, or environmental consulting capacities (salmonid hatcheries, spawning channels, wild fish projects, oyster farms, invertebrate hatcheries and others), and students also work one half day each week on aquaculture or fisheries field projects on campus or in the field. Many courses also involve significant field experience.