As a company, we have always strived to further development through education and growth with our partners. We have had several successful partnerships that have garnered immense support in the education sphere.
Our program, pricing, and skills-based model are so uniquely aligned with the vision and goals of community colleges that we have begun partnering with community colleges to provide our programs as not-for-credit and for-credit options as part of their workforce training efforts.
We are excited to announce our new partnership with Cañada Community College at Menlo Park. This public-private partnership with Cañada Community College will allow us to provide our low cost, high quality coding programs to rapidly train a more diverse workforce.
One major goal and intention of this partnership is to offer a low cost but state-of-the-art full stack developer training program which aims to rapidly create a new, highly tech-skilled diverse workforce to help resolve the talent shortage and diversity challenges in the Bay Area. Together this will be a first of its kind public-private partnership between us and we are thrilled to see its development and look forward to its implementation.
What makes this initiative unique is that while many private-public programs exist at universities, the vast majority cost upwards of $15k, only last 3 months and lack the depth of technical competency required for budding coders to be hired at tech companies in the Bay Area. This new program is the first partnership between a community college and a tech training provider designed to quickly and inexpensively teach students coding skills that are closely aligned with the current job market.
While there are a number of coding bootcamps already on the market, not all coding programs are created equally. Many graduates of expensive bootcamps find themselves unable to find employment after paying expensive tuition because the programs didn’t teach the necessary skills to actually begin working with a top tier tech company.
There is currently a shortage of skilled tech workers in the Bay Area and across America with 1.3 million open tech jobs. Cañada Community College sees the new partnership program as an opportunity to increase enrollment at a time when community colleges statewide face declining numbers, while simultaneously fulfilling its role in helping economic recovery.
Addressing Diversity in Tech
Despite major tech companies' best efforts to create more diverse workers, there still are far fewer hispanics and blacks working within tech companies compared to the general population. The cost of a computer science degree from a university or expensive coding bootcamps can be cost prohibitive for many people from disadvantaged backgrounds to be able to consider a job in technology. This low cost but high-skill program hopes to address this by creating a new career pathway for more minority and diverse populations to quickly become qualified to start working in well paid full stack developer positions.
Dr. Damany Fisher, Regional Director of Special Projects for the Bay Area Community College Consortium (BACCC), says that programs like this are especially needed in light of high unemployment caused by the pandemic. “Unfortunately, many service-sector workers - those who often lacked the luxury of working remotely - felt the full brunt of the pandemic and shutdown,” says Dr. Fisher. “Programs like this are needed to offer workers an opportunity to reskill and pivot toward a more stable and lucrative career in tech.”
Our CEO, Kwame Yamgnane comments, "We are delighted to have this first of its kind partnership between a skills-based technical training company and a community college. We hope this endeavor will help move the needle on diversity in tech by addressing the tech talent pipeline problems while providing skills-based training options that are affordable. We need more of these programs across the US."
The Program
The program is a 9-month non-for-credit certificate program in full stack development. This advanced course is designed for people with a strong interest in getting a job in technology and have moderate computer skills.
The program is focused on 5 major areas that employers in the Bay Area want:
- Depth and breath of applied technical skills
- Strong technical portfolio
- Software development experience
- Technical interview practice and preparation
- Soft skill development including structured problem solving collaboration and creativity
The skills-based program we developed reflects the tasks that developers do in industry and includes structured peer code reviews, live coding sessions, coding collaboration workshops and pair programming. It uses industry standard tools such as Git and an IDE.
The program also works with the students to help them get placed in companies and has industry employers who will interview program graduates. We are also inviting other employers who are looking to hire more diverse coders to attend demo days and recruitment fairs.
To find out more please visit the program webpage.
About Cañada Community College at Menlo Park
Cañada Community College's mission is to provide their community with a learning-centered environment, ensuring that all students have equitable opportunities to achieve their lifelong learning educational goals. Cañada College at Menlo Park offers low cost certification programs that can be completed in three to nine months. Their continuing education programs are not-for-credit courses that allow you to develop a specific area of interest to upgrade your skills, resume, or even start a new career.
How to Enroll
If you are interested in enrolling in Cañada Community College at Menlo Park's full stack program in partnership with Qwasar, please visit the program website.
