In-demand tech skills to augment your university major while still in school

Podium Education believes that colleges should provide every one of their students with a direct path to a great career. To achieve that, they've built online programs that instill "soft-skilled students with the in-demand hard-skills that lead to great employment outcomes." 

I had crossed paths with the Podium team back when they had created academic programs for waitlisted students to backfill dropouts. They've evolved. Now they develop online programs, blending Silicon Valley with academia with Hollywood, and partner with academic institutions, universities, and colleges to deliver that content to improve student outcomes. In a COVID world, their timing was good. 

These for-credit offerings supplement the majors students are already taking at a given academic institution. Simon Campbell's article for EdSurge paints a good picture: "Podium class content is produced in-house, with prestigious teaching talent and glossy video production creating a product that resembles the offerings of other online teaching platforms like Masterclass. The company has invested heavily in content. Teaching materials include datasets from Netflix, Spotify and Lime Scooters for student use."

Choosing a college and major is difficult and high stakes. Where Podium fits in is giving already-enrolled students--with any major--the opportunity to add market-valued skill sets to augment their existing college education. Co-founder Alex Ricken said, "When we started Podium, we wanted to bring Silicon Valley tech skills into the classroom with the best online courses in the world, and do it by investing in pedagogy, production, and technology." 

Instead of taking Podium courses outside their college curriculum, students gain access to Podium's online courses through its partnership with their college or university.

Even as Degreed was built on the theses and vision of jailbreaking the college degree, I still see real value in creating high quality online programming for universities, which led to my investment. As Brooks Morgan, CEO and co-founder of Podium Education, has said, it is the combination of "soft skills plus hard skills [that] create the talents that the workplace demands." When students from non-STEM majors access a data bootcamp, as was done at the Heider College of Business at Creighton University, the result could be exactly that.