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MIT, a new focus on generating ‘people’ skills

October 28, 2009 16:44 by jllorens

(From Boston.com) CAMBRIDGE - The students practice networking and hone “elevator pitches,’’ entrepreneurial ideas summarized in under a minute. They don blindfolds for team-building activities. Failure is met with candid critiques about their leadership styles.

This isn’t business school. It’s a new engineering class at one of the premier engineering universities in the world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT created the unusual undergraduate program in response to industry pressures to produce engineers who are as skilled at communicating face-to-face as they are at writing complicated computer codes on their own. Business leaders complain that many of today’s engineering graduates, trained as abstract thinkers, have too little grounding in the actual practice of working with others to deliver innovative products amid time and budget constraints.

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Schools helping older alumni hone job-hunting skills

October 26, 2009 11:06 by jllorens

(From boston.bizjournals.com) As unemployment has crept higher, colleges and universities have found themselves working harder to help alumni who have lost their jobs, and the latest wave of former students finding their way back are those who are older.

Bob Wally, assistant director for alumni career services at the College of the Holy Cross, said that when the economy first plummeted, he first was meeting with alumni who had graduated 10 or fewer years ago.

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Veterans learn business skills for life after combat

August 28, 2009 13:58 by jllorens

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Life after the military can be tough for many war veterans who struggle to adjust to life after combat.

But a scheme at The Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University aims to provides business training for U.S. war veterans that will make that transition easier.

The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) teaches valuable skills that enable veterans to become self-employed and make their business ideas viable.

The EBV was the brainchild of Mike Haynie, a military veteran who spent 14 years in the air force before becoming an entrepreneurship professor at Syracuse, where his Dean is a Vietnam veteran.

"Self-employment is a powerful path forward for people with disabilities, who may not have a way to plug in to traditional jobs," he told CNN. "We recognized that this was an opportunity to teach entrepreneurship to serve those who have served all of us."

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Op Ed: Solutions for California's skills gap

August 14, 2009 09:49 by jllorens

(From pressdemocrat.com) By 2025, a new study says, more than 40 percent of the jobs in California will require at least a bachelor’s degree.

But if current trends continue, the researchers say, barely a third of adults will have college diplomas, a shortfall of about a million people. At the same time, the number of high school graduates will outnumber jobs for people with that level of education.

Worse yet, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California was completed before it was clear just how much was going to be cut from higher education in the state budget.

Sonoma State University President Ruben Armiñana put the cuts in stark terms.

“Next year, the system will have 40,000 students less than it has today,” he recently told Staff Writer Kerry Benefield. “Forty thousand is about six Sonoma States.”

Fees for the remaining students will be 30 percent higher than last year, and fewer classes will be available. That means fewer opportunities for people to develop the skills needed for good jobs and to start new companies.

The wage gap is at a record level, with those holding college diplomas earning on average twice as much as high school graduates. In the current recession, high school graduates are more than twice as likely as college graduates to be unemployed.

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Categories: News

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Skills Training à la Carte

August 12, 2009 13:28 by jllorens

(From Inside Higher Ed) Community colleges have long tailored courses to meet the demands of local employers, but Kellogg Community College’s Regional Manufacturing Technology Center has taken customizable workforce training to a whole new level.

The community college’s workforce training center, in Battle Creek, Mich., has done away with traditional classroom-bound courses altogether and, instead, has cut up its offerings into more than 1,200 individual skills, or “modules,” that students can take whenever they wish on a walk-in basis. These modules, which can be purchased independently or as part of a larger program of study, are worth fractions of a credit hour. Students have an unlimited amount of time to prove their competency in the specified skill to an on-site instructor; some of the skills can be learned in few short hours.

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Cisco, AIESEC Open International Exchange for Malaysian Students

August 12, 2009 12:45 by jllorens

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) and AIESEC, the world's largest student-run organization, have launched an innovative program to provide Malaysian students with the opportunity to expand their skills and gain valuable international work experience. The initiative is in line with the Malaysian government's call for more public-private sector collaboration to support the education and development of a highly skilled, technology-savvy workforce that can compete in the global arena.

Open to qualified students currently enrolled in the Cisco® Networking Academy® program, the professional internship program will transform the selected students' classroom knowledge to practical work-based skills. The internships vary in duration from six to 18 months.

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Categories: International | News

Texas unveils $25 million technical training program

August 12, 2009 11:32 by jllorens

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs introduced a new workforce development initiative designed to raise the level of technical education in Texas.

Combs released details Tuesday on Every Chance Funds, a $25 million initiative that will provide grants and scholarships over the next biennium.

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Categories: News | The Economy

Categories: News | The Economy
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U.S. grads work for free, look abroad

August 5, 2009 15:28 by jllorens

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans fresh out of university are discovering their expensive degrees are not the entry ticket to a job they had hoped in the face of high unemployment.

Some young graduates are working for free to enhance their skills and bolster their resumes. Some are looking abroad for work while others are determined to push their way into the U.S. job market.

Jessicalind Ah Kit got off to a great start in her job search. One company flew her abroad and gave her a rental car. After a first day of interviews, the company told her it had a freeze on global hiring.

Ah Kit studied management information systems, economics and Japanese in college. After an 18-month search, she has taken an unpaid internship -- her third.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers says only 19.7 percent of 2009's graduates who applied for jobs had them as of May 2009. During the second quarter this year, unemployment for workers under 25 years of age was 17.3 percent, nearly double the national average.

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Categories: International | News

Ivy Tech offers free weatherization training

July 15, 2009 13:19 by jllorens

(Associated Press) INDIANAPOLIS - Ivy Tech Community College and the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority are offering free training to contractors who want to work with an energy conservation program.

Officials say the training will help contractors learn about weatherization and energy conservation techniques they can use in people's homes.

Contractors who complete the training will be eligible to do work through the Home Energy Conservation Program. That federal program aims to reduce heating and cooling costs for low-income families, the elderly, people with disabilities and families with children.

Ivy Tech officials say the training will provide job opportunities to more Indiana workers while helping others become more energy conscious.

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U.S. Push for Free Online Courses

June 29, 2009 17:50 by jllorens

(From InsideHigherEd.com) WASHINGTON -- Community colleges and high schools would receive federal funds to create free, online courses in a program that is in the final stages of being drafted by the Obama administration.

The program is part of a series of efforts to help community colleges reach more students and to link basic skills education to job training. The proposals are outlined in administration discussion drafts obtained by Inside Higher Ed. A formal announcement could come in the next few weeks. In addition to the free online courses, the plan would provide $9 billion over 10 years to help community colleges develop and improve programs related to preparing students for good jobs, and a $10 billion loan fund (at low or no interest) for community college facilities.

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Categories: The Economy

Categories: The Economy
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