The Penn State College of Engineering will soon offer certified microcredentials that will provide working engineers with opportunities to gain specialized skills and career development through a portfolio of flexible learning options. Credit: Penn State
College of Engineering offers information session on new microcredential program
The inaugural engineering microcredentials, launching this May, will offer flexible, specialized learning
April 18, 2024
By Tessa M. Pick
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Starting this spring, the Penn State College of Engineering will offer certified microcredentials that will provide working engineers with opportunities to gain specialized skills and career development through a portfolio of flexible learning options. The college will host a virtual program information session at 8:00 p.m. on April 23.
At the informational session, department heads and co-directors leading the initiative will provide more information on these learning experiences and an opportunity to engage directly with Penn State faculty to gain a deeper understanding of course structures and objectives. Registration is required.
Designed to keep pace with innovation in engineering, microcredientials provide learning experiences to help adult learners and students gain essential skills quickly and implement those skills into their existing careers.
“The time that it takes to go from discovery to an invention to prototyping to commercialization is much faster today than it was just five or 10 years ago,” said David Mazyck, head of the School of Engineering Design and Innovation (SEDI), who helped establish the college’s microcredential program. “To be able to match this accelerated growth of technology, we also need to be able to provide fast-paced learning experiences.”
The college’s certified microcredential program, which will launch in May, offers flexible learning experiences with Penn State faculty and industry experts. Each microcredential short course is a four-week hybrid learning experience that takes place fully online, includes asynchronous content and offers live sessions with instructors and other experts.
The college’s Office for Digital Learning’s learning experience designers helped design the courses to ensure each one adhered to the office’s standards of online education excellence.
Currently, the college is offering six microcredentials, housed in SEDI and the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME), all designed to help participants advance their professional and technical skills.
“For SEDI, our first iteration of microcredentials is geared towards early career engineers,” said Meg Handley, associate director of engineering leadership development undergraduate programs and associate teaching professor in SEDI. “Our focus is to provide these micro-learning experiences to address gaps in workforce demands for those who have recently entered the workforce.”
Even though the first iteration is geared toward early career engineers, the microcredentials are open to anyone who is looking to build their engineering skills and develop their career portfolio.
"In ME, our inaugural microcredential targets engineers working in the space of multiphase flows and will develop learner skills in using state-of-the-art computational techniques for modeling,” said Andrea Gregg, director of learning experience design in ME and associate research professor of ME. “Moving forward, our microcredential offerings will target engineers and technicians working at various levels who need to develop skills in areas of the latest engineering approaches and technologies as well as those in heavy workforce demand.”
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