New Programs Put Community College Students on Track to High-Demand Jobs

New York, NY, May 01, 2018 -- Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York (BMCC/CUNY) has entered two innovative partnerships that level the playing field for underserved students looking to enter certain high-demand job sectors. 

BMCC Partnership Creates Emergency Medical Technician Training

BMCC’s Center for Continuing Education and Workforce Development has partnered with Comprehensive Development, Inc. (CDI), a network of alternative high schools, and Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider.  

The purpose of the partnership is to smooth the transition to college for students who have earned a High School Equivalency diploma by providing them with Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) training.

They not only complete EMT training, contextualized customer service training and an internship in a medical facility, they earn stackable credits into the Associate in Applied Sciences (A.A.S.) Paramedic program in BMCC’s Allied Health Science department.

The program also erases barriers to the success of underserved students—such as the fact that most of them don’t have a driver’s license. Driver’s training heightens the students’ employability as EMTs, and they are eligible to take the national certification exam.

Funded by the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, the EMT pilot program is serving its first cohort of 25 students, who will be placed in EMT or related healthcare positions.

“This important partnership supports BMCC’s goal to enable student transitions across the education continuum from high school to our community college," says Sunil Gupta, Dean of the Center for Continuing Education and Workforce Development at BMCC. "It opens a pathway to higher education in the long run and in the immediate future, makes it possible for these 18- to 24-year-olds to apply in-demand skills and certification to enter the thriving New York City healthcare industry.” 

BMCC First College in CUNY System to Offer Apple’s Everyone Can Code Curriculum 

BMCC is the first college in the CUNY system to partner with Apple and offer an app development curriculum designed by Apple engineers and educators. Students in the Everyone Can Codecourse provided by BMCC’s Center for Continuing Education and Workforce Development will learn to make world-class apps. They’ll be better equipped to compete in New York City’s thriving gig economy and raise their career prospects to a new level. 

Starting in May, more than 50 of BMCC’s continuing education students will have the option to learn Swift, Apple’s easy-to-learn programming language. 

The program will take students from basic proficiency to advanced applications using Swift and Xcode. 

This will give BMCC students the fundamental skills to pursue careers in the booming app economy, which has created more than 1.6 million jobs nationwide. 

It will also tap into their creativity and problem-solving skills as they turn business ideas and strategies into viable apps,” says Sunil Gupta, Dean of the BMCC Center for Continuing Education and Workforce Development, who adds, “Students who complete the course will be prepared to enter and compete in New York City’s rapidly changing gig economy.”

Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) and enrolls over 27,000 degree-seeking and 11,000 continuing education students a year, awarding associate degrees in more than 45 fields. BMCC ranks #5 among community colleges nationwide in granting associate degrees to minority students, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. Visit: http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu.

Lynn McGee
Borough of Manhattan Community College
212-346-8523
[email protected]