All sectors experienced significant change in the last year, but there’s one that’s thrived above most. Cloud services have seen double-digit growth amid massive expansion of work and study from home.
Gartner points out that even reluctant Chief Information Officers (CIOs) moved mission-critical workload away from their premises during pandemic lockdowns. Yet beyond the home-based activities driving this growth, cloud is also seeing increasing demands from the frontiers of technology, from the Internet of Things to Artificial Intelligence.
Computer Systems Technology Cloud Computing Option
Dr. Farnaz Dargahi, BCIT Computer Systems Technology (CST) Diploma Program Option Head for Cloud Computing: “cloud computing is one of the most in-demand skills in the technology industry. The growth in the adoption of cloud signals that this demand will further increase in the coming decade.”
Farnaz enjoys being able to teach practical skills to students, so when they graduate they know how to build and operate highly scalable and available cloud-based systems. She brings a background of both research and industry experience in distributed software architecture.
“The courses are regularly updated to reflect technology advancements and innovations,” she explains. “I am also in the close contact with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Educate team to ensure students have access to all the services required for the courses, and the expenses are covered for their assignments and projects.”
Delving into one provider, industry leader AWS, ensures the students have enough time to get deep hands-on experience. “I believe this approach is effective for my students, and I have witnessed them finding related opportunities soon after graduation,” says Farnaz.
Hands-on approach
One such grad is Andrei Muresan, who graduated in 2020 and was quickly hired. He currently works as a DevOps Engineer.
“I believe that the cloud computing background I built during my time in the CST Cloud Computing option gave me a major leg up when I was job hunting,” explains Andrei. “Every interviewer I had was eager to learn more about the experience and certifications I picked up along the way.”
He credits applied learning for setting him up for immediate effectiveness.
Andrei took on a range of challenges while at CST – check out his team’s big win at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco
“BCIT’s hands-on approach to teaching cloud computing also exposed me to business-critical concepts like security, scaling, and cost management” he says. “That made it easier to hit the ground running in both of the jobs I’ve had since I graduated.”
Andrei emphasizes that cloud technologies are now ubiquitous across roles in the tech sector. “No matter what your tech career goals are, learning to work in the cloud will help you achieve them.”
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