Training the Next Generation of Builders at Queensborough Community College

QCC is one of the 25 campuses of the City University of New York (CUNY) public university system—and one of the highest-rated community colleges in New York State. Given its location in the most diverse county in the United States, the college attracts students from all walks of life. Many students hail from communities that are underrepresented in the technology sector, are adult learners returning to school after long breaks, have jobs or are raising families alongside their college classes, and require financial aid. QCC further supports diversity by proudly serving as both a minority-serving institution and a Hispanic-serving institution. In the 2021–2022 academic year, 31 percent of QCC students were Black while 29 percent were Hispanic. As a result, QCC trains diverse pools of learners on the practical skills that they need to be successful.

Prof. Michael Lawrence, a faculty member in the QCC Engineering Technology Department since 2014, saw the cloud-skills gap as an opportunity to take advantage of AWS Education Programs. At that time, he began using AWS Educate to supplement the courses that he taught. AWS Educate offers hundreds of hours of free, self-paced training and resources for new-to-cloud learners—including hands-on labs in the AWS Management Console.

In October 2018, Prof. Lawrence learned about the innovative cloud courses within AWS Academy that are developed and maintained by AWS experts and are designed to fit seamlessly within an educator’s existing course structure.

QCC adopted AWS Academy courses, both as part of its community college curriculum and as free, grant funded, continuing education and workforce development classes. To teach the courses, Prof. Lawrence attended several AWS classes and earned several AWS Certifications. Five other instructors in the QCC Engineering Technology Department have earned AWS Certifications and are also teaching AWS Academy courses.

Instructors can use the predesigned AWS Academy curriculum to teach cloud skills and their application in the workplace. AWS Academy designs its courses with input from industry experts and customers, and AWS experts keep the courses up-to-date with current technology. Plus, there is room for instructors to add their own spin. Prof. Lawrence found that he could easily integrate discussions beyond the cloud into the courses he teaches using the AWS Academy curriculum. “The AWS Academy material provides the what, while I talk about why that what is important,” he says.

The AWS Academy courses include videos, quizzes, handbooks, and hands-on labs to give students a foundation upon which later lessons build. The videos often feature talks by industry influencers, like the former chief technology officer of Lyft, who discusses how students would practice coding by recreating the architecture that Lyft was built on. The hands-on lab exercises feature real-life scenarios to teach important elements of cloud computing, such as using containers and automatic scaling. “I wouldn’t be doing this without AWS Academy,” says Prof. Lawrence. “I wouldn’t have had the time to put this all together.”

AWS Academy courses also help prepare students to earn AWS Certifications, which validate technical skills and cloud expertise.