By NICK BANDY
Columnist
Amarillo College is now offering a new career accelerator program that teaches Amazon Web Services Cloud Skills Certifications.
“Our career accelerator program is like a boot camp in which it’s a 10 week program, where students are gaining the knowledge necessary to pass the Amazon Web certification for cloud practitioner and for solutions architect,” said Keegan Ried, career accelerator instructor.
The program not only focuses on preparing students for certification, but also on preparing them for work in the tech industry.
“During those 10 weeks, the students are getting the knowledge that is Amazon geared, but it’s also a holistic program,” Ried said. “So they’re also getting human skills. They are meeting with industry experts who are their mentors during the 10 weeks. The mentors are talking them through interview techniques and career pathways, because there are 1,000 different things you can do with Amazon Web Services.”
Many students said they are happy with the practical skills and industry knowledge that the class is equipping them with.
“I thought it was just like a boot camp kind of thing where you get knowledge and they hammer that into your brain,” said AJ Cunha, an AWS cloud skills student.
“Now I understand that the intention is more like creating these new individuals that are capable and able to apply whatever we are learning here. They are doing very well to prove that what I said before, is that they are not only focusing on knowledge, but also on human skills, soft and hard skills,” Cunha said.
Many of the students within the program were not shy expressing their satisfaction for the course. “For people that are thinking of taking it, I think it’s awesome what they’re doing here. I mean, they’re all the way committed with this program,” said Justin Tingler, an AWS cloud skills student.
For those who are interested in the program but do not feel confident in their tech skills, the course may still be an option.
“We have individuals who have very little experience with computers all the way up through people who are currently working in cloud computing,” Ried said. “So the course doesn’t assume that you have any prior knowledge. It just assumes that you have some basic computer skills, and then we go from that to the solutions architect level, associate level K”
The courses will continue to run every 10 weeks for the near future, with the possibility of new courses as well.
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