Galvanize and Maricopa Community College District team up

Galvanize and the Maricopa County Community College District have teamed up to prepare students for software and business-related development with the creative Web Development Immersive (WDI) program.

The WDI is a 24-week full-time program offered by Galvanize, a learning community for technology, at its coding facility in downtown Phoenix.

Bruce Battle, South Mountain Community College (SMCC) PR and Marketing Manager, explained SMCC, of the Maricopa County Community College District, and Galvanize have a memorandum of understanding that SMCC provides Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) for Galvanize students.

Students who complete the WDI program at Galvanize can earn up to 12 credits toward the Associate in Applied Science in General Business or a Certificate of Completion in General Business at SMCC.

The CPL credit will be awarded for four courses after a student successfully completes nine credits in the program, Battle explained.

The CPL courses are:

CIS132 (HTML/CSS)

CIS166AA (Intro to JavaScript)

CIS154 (Database Modeling and Design)

CIS298AC (Special Topics)

“SMCC has growing programs for degrees and certificates in Programming and Mobile App Development, Web Design and Development, Business and Entrepreneurship. Besides the coding aspects, Galvanize also focuses in on entrepreneurship with their students. Since the two institutions share many common interests in preparing students for the workforce, it seemed wise to develop a partnership,” Battle said.

He explained, “Software development skills lend themselves well to freelancing, consulting or launching a startup development firm. Thus, a partnership with a business/entrepreneurship degree or certificate makes a lot of sense.”

Encouraging software development education and providing the tools necessary to pursue a career in the field is beneficial to students because software developers are in high demand.

The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) projects a 24 percent employment growth rate for software developers between 2016 and 2026. Its growth rate is noticeably higher than the average, which is seven percent.

In addition to the healthy employment rate, the BLS states software developers in applications and systems software earn a six-figure annual median wage.

“The partnership is currently only [being] piloted at SMCC,” Battle said. “It is anticipated that the partnership will be extended to other [Maricopa County Community Colleges] at a future date.”

Diana Vowels, Galvanize general manager, explained that Galvanize students consist of recent high school and college graduates, and people who are in the middle of their career and are interested in a career change.  

She said, “We have a challenging screening process and an intense, focused program. For students who are curious, driven and possess a growth mindset, our program can accelerate their career in tech in a few short months. They leave our program ready to hit the ground running in any company.”

Students can begin taking classes at SMCC toward the certificate or degree in January 2019.

In addition to the WDI program and partnership with Galvanize, Battle said SMCC offers “mobile app development courses in iOS, Android, and Microsoft C#/Xamarin.”

Sierra Ciaramella

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