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Graduates of Tech Talent Pipeline programs, including the TTP Residency at Queens College, have launched tech careers at Spotify, Google, Thrillist, Soundcloud and many other companies.
By Forum Staff
A new initiative promises to double the number of City University of New York students graduating annually with a tech-related bachelor’s degree by the year 2022, the de Blasio administration announced on Monday.
The five-year, $20 million CUNY 2X Tech program brings together CUNY colleges and major employers to expand access to quality tech careers and meet industry needs, officials said.
“This new initiative opens the door for more New Yorkers to enter quality, well-paying careers in the tech sector while helping local companies find the home-grown talent they need to build their businesses,” said Gregg Bishop, commissioner of the City Department of Small Business Services. “Working together with CUNY and industry leaders, more New Yorkers will have a ticket to a middle class career in an important, rapidly growing industry.”
According to most recent statistics, only 1,000 CUNY graduates earn tech bachelor’s degrees annually. Through $11 million in City funds and $9 million in federal and private commitments, CUNY 2X Tech pledges to build a world-class public higher education pipeline by enhancing classroom instruction, promote tech-specific advising, and provide tech majors with on-the-job experiences to prepare a total of 7,500 students for post-graduation careers.
Hunter College and Lehman College will be the first to receive $2 million each in funding for this initiative, with plans to expand it to six CUNY campuses – including Queens College – in the coming years.
According to the administration, CUNY 2X Tech was designed in partnership with NYC companies and academic leaders. The initiative promises to provide the following City and private support in order to improve the retention and competitiveness of CUNY graduates and prepare them to secure and succeed in NYC tech jobs following graduation:
Updated instruction through new faculty lines in industry-aligned fields and the launch of the Tech-in-Residence Corps, a first-of-its-kind municipal-industry-academic partnership designed to bring qualified industry professionals into the classroom to teach emerging tech skills. The inaugural corps consists of members who specialize in a range of tech professions at the following companies: LinkedIn, StreetEasy, EY, Citi, Credit Suisse, Etsy, AppNexus, Addepar, Fareportal, Adaptiv, Dstillery, JetBlue, Infor, Spotify, and Vimeo.
Tech-specific advising through dedicated tech academic advisors, who will help students navigate tech careers and the courses needed to pursue them, and career advising workshops.
On-the-job experience through the expansion of the Tech Talent Pipeline Residency internship program and industry-led job-readiness workshops for students, including:
Facebook Above and Beyond CS: Facebook New York will host Above and Beyond CS – a series of workshops that reinforce essential technical computer science skills and mindsets, while emphasizing application and feedback, ongoing independent practice, and progress tracking. Designed to help emerging talent internalize the elements of an excellent technical interview, 40 students this fall will receive 20-30 hours of practice from September to December, identifying personal areas of strength/opportunity and developing a plan to prepare for interviews.
ZocDoc Technical Workshop will help students build their technical proficiency and expand exposure to tech work environments.
MongoDB Project Sessions in which MongoDB will deploy engineers to work on live open-source projects with computer science majors across CUNY colleges.
