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New course preparing students for world of work

30 October, 2020
News and events

A new Information Technology course offered at OPAIC is helping our students prepare for the industry.

The course gives students a foundation in Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

After students complete this foundation course, they can sit the AWS Practitioner Exam to obtain an industry certification called the AWS Foundation Certification.

We first provided the course in Study Block 4 of this year to 10 students from our Bachelor of Information Technology and Graduate Diploma in Information Technology.

Head of IT and Principal Lecturer, Dr Farhad Mehdipour, says cloud computing is something employers expect graduates to be familiar with. Additionally, AWS is a popular service around the world.

He designed the tasks and assessments for the course with input from partners at AWS. Students cover many skills in the course including mind maps, literature reviews, case studies reflection and industry certification.

For their case studies, students have to analyse an AWS success story. They look at how AWS has worked for well-known organisations such as Formula 1. 

Farhad is now encouraging the Study Block 4 cohort to complete the AWS Foundation Certification. He hopes the students will be keen to undertake other certifications in their areas of interest in the future.

A few of our students and recent graduates have already been able to obtain the AWS Foundation Certification and others are working towards it.

Farhad says the new course has been a success. Students received good grades overall and gave positive feedback. It will be offered again early next year.

Cloud computing is a trending technology and it’s great that students have the opportunity to learn from resources from a world leader in the field, says Farhad.

This sort of course gives them the self-confidence to be able to engage with such technologies in future.

Recently an industry speaker came to the campus and talked to IT students about what they would need to know when they entered the industry. They were heartened to know they’d learned about most of the things mentioned.