BRYAN, Texas — The Blinn College cloud computing program is in its second year, preparing students for high-paying, in-demand jobs in tech.
- The program gives students the opportunity to get four different certifications by the end of the two-year program.
- It's a high-demand profession: Last year there was a 1.4 million jobs shortage in the US and $2-3 million shortage worldwide.
- The program gives students hands-on opportunities and experiences creating cloud servers, preparing them for lucrative jobs post graduation.
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"You’re only going to get those non-crazy numbers if you statically assign those IPB6 addresses."
If talks of IPB-6 addresses and long numbers on a computer screen make your eyes glaze over, well, you might be a little more interested after hearing this.
“Students can come out of this program with their certifications and earn upwards of 100 grand a year. With a two-year degree,” Carol Wiggins said.
Yeah, maybe not so boring after all. Carol Wiggins is the program coordinator for the computer information technologies department. About a year ago, she started this new cloud computing program at Blinn College. Why?
“The demand for it is just astronomical. Last year alone, there was a $1.4 million jobs shortage just in the US. That's not even worldwide. Worldwide, we're talking two or 3 million shortage,” Wiggins said.
So, what is the cloud?
“I think the best kind of example of that would be Netflix. Right? When I was a younger kid, growing up Netflix was a service that would mail you DVDs, you would take your movies for the week, they would mail you your DVDs, you would mail it back the week after," Thomas Nutt said.
"They now store all of those movies online for real time streaming whenever you want to hit the button," he said.
It's not just more convenient.
“Makes it more cost effective. It makes it more resilient. It has better security, those types of things. And so we teach our students here, how to actually do that in the cloud,” Wiggins said.
Thomas Nutt will be graduating from the program in May and he's already working in the field he's studying.
“Taking everything all the data to be housed on things like this. We're putting it online,” Nutt said.
Nutt says while he always wanted to work in tech, this program has opened special doors for him.
“The biggest thing that's come of this is my current job. I wouldn't be where I am right now, without this program. I wouldn't be anywhere close," Nutt said.