Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), San Jose City College (SJCC) and the Austin Community College District (ACC) have joined Google’s first federally registered apprenticeship program through the Department of Labor, which works with state apprenticeship agencies to administer the program nationally.
The Google IT Apprenticeship Program and other similar apprenticeship programs are designed to help students — particularly non-traditional students — train for new jobs. Such programs can help equip workers displaced amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with the skills necessary to transition to new roles in the growing IT (informational technology) industry.
“It’s not only that we’re trying to connect industry to academics; [we’re also] connecting our communities, which is our mission,” said Sunil B. Gupta, dean of the Center for Continuing Education and Workforce Development at BMCC. Students and apprentices can also earn a micro-credential which “basically consists of an industry-recognized credential that’s in demand, which can provide family sustaining wage jobs and also be a pathway to college enrollment,” he added.
The Google IT certification course is specifically designed for IT support — the apprenticeship program is supplementary to this two-month course, which is now administered remotely due to COVID-19. The course is designed to help students acquire digital, professional and technical skills leading to Google IT certification.
At BMCC, 40 students are taking the course and 5 apprentices were chosen by Google — through a competitive application process — to get additional, paid hands-on experience as part of the Google IT Apprenticeship Program. Currently, the apprenticeship is a pilot program enabling students to work as IT support specialists in the information technology sector. The class began in mid-August and will end in mid-October.
Gupta hopes that programs such as this can help BMCC “identify ways in which we can register these micro-credentials with the state, so that at some point in the future, they can be eligible for Pell and Tap grant funding, and we can further grant more equity of access to the communities in NYC.”
Given the prevalence of remote work amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IT skills and certification are in high demand, said Gupta.
