A Level-Versary Celebration – Northeastern’s Bootcamp program turns one!

A Level-Versary Celebration – Northeastern’s Bootcamp program turns one!

 

Northeastern University Seattle celebrated the one-year anniversary of the university’s Level program and announced the next session of its Level AWS: Foundations of Cloud Computing course, beginning February 13, 2017.

Level classes are a blend of career-oriented instruction and experiential learning which leverage Northeastern’s renowned co-op program. Students work on authentic, real-world projects with industry leaders such as Amazon.com, Big Fish, Avalara, Care.com, MITx, Nordstrom and Starbucks.

The celebration kicked off with some time for mingling, complete with snacks and cupcakes. Attendees had the chance to catch up with Scott McKinley, Northeastern University Seattle’s dean & CEO, as well as members of the faculty and staff.

After the networking time, the official program began. McKinley welcomed guests, discussing how the Seattle campus is at the epicenter for growth, and how successful the first year of Level has been on the campus.

“When we launched the Level bootcamp, it was a pretty radical thing for a tier-one research university to do,” said McKinley. “But we had big ambitions, and now the program is a success.”

Jon Fish, Head of Operations at Level Education, then spoke about the history of the Level program, and why it was created. Fish has spent his entire career in education and entrepreneurship, and said along the way he kept seeing the same sorts of problems.

“We keep seeing that students want to get skills to improve what they are doing; their careers and what’s next, but traditional university programs aren’t meeting those needs these days. Coming to Northeastern was a great opportunity to take a step back and think about different ways that we could address how we could provide students that surfboard and those skills,” said Fish. “Through Level, we’ve been able to take a unique approach. We wanted to pull together the best pieces of both; what’s happening in the world in education in general and what’s special about Northeastern.

Level combines the best of the bootcamp model; short, intense, and focused, and the advantage of universities – quality. Fish called it Northeastern’s experiential component the “special sauce.”

Next up, Jim Knapik, Business and Program Development for Level Enterprise and AWS Programs, spoke about his work with Level in Seattle. Knapik has been with the program from the beginning, seen its growth and experienced its successes.

 

A look towards a collaborative future

The celebration also welcomed a new program – Level AWS: Foundations of Cloud Computing.  The course is a unique collaboration between Amazon Web Services and Northeastern University Seattle.

The Cloud Computing course is designed to help students develop technical expertise in cloud computing and prepare them for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification exam. Currently, Northestern University Seattle is the only institution in Seattle offering the course, which has to be taught by an accredited instructor.

“We knew we had an opportunity with Amazon right across the street,” said Knapik. “Our program is growing quickly and we are extremely successful at educating students and preparing them for positions that allow them to enter the workforce warm, not cold and flat footed, because of the skills that they’re learning from our knowledge and hands-on approach.”

Raphael Soeiro de Fario, program manager for AWS, also spoke at the party. Soeiro de Fario discussed the future program, which will combine traditional education and hands-on experiences for students.

“We are very excited about the collaboration we have with Northeastern,” said Soeiro de Fario. “We know we will grow the program from here, and are optimistic for the future.”

“It has been a really exciting year. A lot of amazing things have happened because of the people in this room’ today,” said Fish. Borrowing a line from Northeastern University’s President Joseph Aoun, Fish closed his address to the crowd with, “I’m really happy but not satisfied. We won’t be happy until we find ways to provide skills to every single person who wants to learn skills no matter where they are in their starting point, career, or where they want to go. That’s the happy and weird thing about our one-year anniversary. We’ve made a lot of progress but there’s still a long way to go.

To learn more about Level programs, please visit https://seattle.northeastern.edu/level

 

 

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