SAN DIEGO — The Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District is now offering a wide array of career tech courses to help people sharpen a skill or learn something new while so many are out of work.
"[They can] up their skills, change their skills, make a career change or finish a goal,” said Dr. Javier Ayala, Grossmont College Dean of Careers and Workforce Development.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the workforce options for many with rampant job loss, layoffs, and furloughs, the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District is now offering new courses to help those seeking new skills a new way up.
“If you're willing to make that commitment for one semester, you could have a brand new set of skills and be employed in a new field,” Ayala said.
Some of the program’s most popular program offerings include a fire responders training and education course.
“Folks who are wanting to pursue paramedics, fire science, administration and justice, those programs are in high demand,” Ayala said.
There's also the course on cybersecurity that educates students by training them to set up firewalls to respond to hacking events and set up secure systems. Classes on data sciences and manufacturing are also in high demand as some last eight weeks and others last 16 weeks.
Ayala said the career field yields opportunities earning $40,000-60,000 a year while classes cost $46 per credit.
Classes from accounting to culinary arts and computer programming are all part of the Career Technical Education and Workforce courses.
“I think that one of the key features of the CTE program is having those hands-on skills and knowledge to be able to set yourself apart from others whenever you're applying for jobs in the future,” said Grossmont College student Andrew Oskanian.
Oskanian is completing his third year of classes at Grossmont and plans to apply for pharmacy school soon. He said the online-only education has been a big change but is very doable considering all the major changes lately.
“It is a little bit different of an adjustment, but nobody expected this to happen, but I think the transition, like I said, has been very smooth,” Oskanian said.
Some of the workforce classes begin on Aug. 17, others start on Oct. 12 and can last until early December.