The University of Colorado Boulder is now the first four-year university in Colorado to offer a program through which students, recent graduates and staff can get free professional job training from Google. The program, called Google Career Certificates, launched Monday and aims to help CU Buffs gain in-demand skills and credentials for the digital economy. “This innovative partnership — the first of its kind in the state — allows students to add a quality, industry-recognized credential to their collegiate experience potentially enhancing a student’s marketability in the workforce,” Angie Paccione, executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, said in a statement. The program is especially targeted to CU Boulder juniors and seniors who are preparing to enter the workforce. To connect certificate graduates to jobs, the program includes an employer consortium of more than 150 companies, including Deloitte, Ford, Verizon, Walmart and Google. “We are glad that Google wants to offer our students and staff some of their best instructional content in ways that will offer new opportunities at graduation and beyond,” Robert McDonald, dean of University Libraries and senior vice provost of online education at CU Boulder, said in a statement. The program will provide access to six Google Career Certificates in fields including data analytics, project management, IT support and UX design. The certificates are designed and taught by Google employees and are considered stackable credentials, or part of a sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time to demonstrate an individual’s expanded competencies. For more information, visit grow.google/certificates/.
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