Today retail is more than just a store associate and customer relationship. It is a multibillion-dollar industry with career opportunities for different expertises, yet it's taken quite some time to receive the respect it deserves compared to its peers in other industries.

Noticing the rapid growth of the industry, retail professionals reached out to post-secondary institutions in an attempt to educate retail hopefuls, rather than simply having them start from behind the sales counter to work their way up. Following this proposal, Ryerson University and the University of Alberta introduced their schools to the retail industry through a major within the degree in commerce and have become two of the top retailing schools in the country.

Schooled in retail

What we've done is we've pretty much dissected retail as an industry, says Celestine Saddler, academic coordinator and student academic advisor at the Ted Rogers School of Retail Management at Ryerson University, adding that students study the roles of buyers, store operations, private label companies, and multichannel retailing.

As more and more students study retailing in the classroom, Emily Salsbury, retail strategist at the University of Alberta's School of Retailing, suggests students should also work part-time jobs in retail while in school. Retail will give you so many personal skills that you otherwise wouldn't get working another job in school, she says. The multitasking skills, talking skills, and the time management skills are the ones that are valuable when it comes to the workplace later on.

Aside from the in-class learning, retailing students also have the opportunity for hands-on experience through internships. We offer a great internship program that we're gearing up to do with all of our partners, says Salsbury. We pair [students] up with our partners, look at specific jobs, and try to really line them up with good jobs.

At Ryerson, paid retail internships for its students are mandatory and the 400 hours are completed during their third year. The reason why it's designed in the third-year level is because it allows the students to take their first two years of foundation in retail and understand what that means in terms of going out there and being a manager, says Saddler.

Academic advantage

According to Salsbury, retail careers as marketers, analysts, and of course as managers are just a few areas where students find themselves after entering the industry. Right now is the busiest time for retail; we've got so much expansion coming in from international, as well as national retailers, she says. Retail is changing and becoming a more lucrative career.

As retail programs are fairly new to universities, majoring in retail management can give students a competitive edge in the job hunt after graduation. Retail is a business, it's a corporation, says Saddler. You are running a multibillion-dollar corporation. Should you not know how to look at the books and should you not know how to deal with people, you can't be a manager.

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