If you’re a laid off federal worker, or worried the ax could fall on you yet, the University of Maryland is offering some free and discounted grad school and certificate programs relevant to where career fields are headed.
A free online certificate program focused on artificial intelligence in business is being launched at the Smith School of Business on May 1.
“We help people understand what this is, how it has evolved over time, so that people can actually start understanding AI to appreciate the capabilities,” said Balaji Padmanabhan, director of the University of Maryland Center for AI in Business. “And then we very quickly go into applied functional areas — AI in finance, AI in marketing, AI in operations, etc.”
He said a recent search for online job listings found tens of thousands of job openings that mention AI. He thinks that’s undercounting just how much demand there is to understand AI.
“A lot of the jobs may not even explicitly say ‘AI,’ but when they’re looking to hire an analyst, they view AI related things that people can do,” he said. “So that’s a need in the marketplace that we know exists today.”
“If someone comes in and they can combine deep domain knowledge in some discipline with AI understanding, the combination is tremendously useful in the marketplace,” he added.
In addition, the business school at UMD usually offers a 30% discount to civil service workers for the first year of graduate programs. This year, anyone who was employed by the federal government at the start of the year, even if they aren’t now, will be eligible for that discount when it comes to a wide variety of business-related STEM programs.
Former students who are now also former federal workers can also quality for free enrollment in some other STEM programs related to business education.
“We are in the business of helping people transform their lives with education, and that’s really our biggest motivation,” Padmanabhan said.
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