News segment highlighted short-term certificates as pathways to modern careers
The CA Cloud program and the partnership between Amazon Web Services and the 19 Community Colleges in the LA region were profiled as part of a news segment on the changing nature of higher education. One of the profiles in the segment featured an interview with Patricia Ramos, Ed.D., Dean, Academic Affairs, Santa Monica College, in which she mentioned the origins of the program. The CA Cloud program offers industry-recognized certificates to students in the program which is now offered at 15 of the 19 community colleges in the LA Basin, and started when Amazon and SMC co-created a pilot.
Amazon recognized the need to create a skilled workforce familiar with implementing its technologies, which is a critical ingredient to increasing widespread use of its cloud hosting platforms. The most important point is that college collaboration with industry is key to developing the program because it enables faculty to teach the specific skills students will need to succeed in moving a company’s IT systems to the cloud. One student in the program was interviewed and those comments are worth hearing.
The news segment helped increase awareness that short term certificates are growing in importance for accessing well-paying careers. The purpose of Center for a Competitive Workforce is to increase industry-education partnerships to drive this kind of progress.
Watch the full PBS segment, which starts at the 48:25 mark. Skip to the 52:25 mark for the CA Cloud discussion
To engage with CCW, contact Claire Anderson at LAEDC: claire.anderson@laedc.org
