With more than seven years of human resources experience at a Bay Area architecture firm, Iulia Moldovan is gaining additional HR knowledge with the Certificate Program in Human Resource Management. After researching different programs and graduate degrees in the Bay Area, Moldovan is enticed by the certificate's rigor and breadth of topics.

With the amount of experience and sharing, you can't not learn.

In each course, Moldovan finds new nuggets of information to employ at work. "A lot of what my company does is already a best practice or very close," she says. "But in the Total Compensation class, we talked about total compensation statements, looking at examples and how to put them together. Two months later, my boss wanted me to put together total compensation statements, and I was able to bring in samples."

Moldovan also gains new viewpoints from her fellow classmates, who comprise a mix of HR professionals and those new to the field. "Your classmates are an incredible resource," she says. "It's essentially a group meeting every week where you talk to people who work at giant companies, startups, tech companies, pharmaceuticals, architecture firms. With the amount of experience and sharing, you can't not learn."