Build your Project Management Career by Earning an Advanced Certificate in Project Management and Unlock New IT Opportunities.
Learn more about how getting an Advanced Certificate in Project Management can help you build the career you want, allowing you to boost your salary and tap into new opportunities without a master’s degree. By Davlynn Gundolff
Are you ready to take your career to the next level by becoming a Project Manager – but not quite ready to commit to a master’s degree? Then an Advanced Certificate in Project Management could be the solution you need! Not only is it a simple way to boost your knowledge and your salary in a relatively short amount of time, but it can also help you to figure out if getting your master’s degree is a path you eventually want to pursue (which will give you a leg up if you do). ...
If you’ve considered “continuing education,” certification programs, you’ll find that they are a series of classes or workshops that aren’t quite as intense as formal degree programs but still provide a measured level of knowledge. Depending on the type of certificate you choose, these courses also may provide a solid foundation on which you can build to take a licensing or certification exam that proves you’re qualified to work in your chosen field.
Similarly, when it comes to a Project Management Advanced Certificate, getting one has many benefits, starting with a potential increase in your annual pay. In fact, if you decide to take the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam after completing your Project Management Advanced Certificate.
you can boost your salary by 26 percent! Other technology certifications like Agile and Prince2 can result in a similar bump in pay, and they’ll also position you to advance your career as a project manager in technology (and earn even more money).
Another benefit of completing your Technology Project Management Advanced Certification is that it often takes less than one year – rather than the two or more years you’ll need to earn a master’s degree. Plus, at Touro GST, the credits you earn by completing your certificate can later be applied to a master’s degree, so you’ll already be well on your way to earning a Master of Science if you want one.
Once you’ve completed a certificate program and passed the technology certification exams that are applicable for your career goals, you’ll be qualified to expand your horizons beyond IT into the management world. As a Technology Project Manager,
you’ll get the opportunity to work on exciting initiatives that can have a huge impact on a department or division – or even an entire company
Corporate technology projects could include anything from implementing a new internal HR tool or developing an external payment system to working with AI and Machine Learning to create an innovative product or service. As a Project Manager, you’ll create a project plan, identify resources, and guide the team from inception to completion – tracking progress, documenting processes, and course correcting along the way. In short, you’ll be in the driver’s seat, steering the project with your knowledge and expertise to ensure that the project successfully crosses the finished line.
The demand for professionals who have deep knowledge of technology and how technology intersects with business is on the rise, and over the next 10 years, the Computer and Information Technology industry is expected to grow by 13%. That adds up to nearly 668,000 new opportunities, creating plenty of job security in what’s generally a high-paying career field: On average, Project Management Specialists working in Computer Systems Design and related areas earn around $102,000 annually, and that figure can soar with additional experience and certifications.
Clearly, getting your Advanced Certificate in Project Management can have a dramatic impact on your future, opening the door to exciting new opportunities. If you’re ready to take the next step in your career and combine your love of technology with project management skills, then the Project Management Advanced Certificate at Touro University Graduate School of Technology may be right for you.
Our brand-new New York State-approved advanced certification program is designed to give you a deep knowledge of IT Project Management that will empower you to build the technology career you’ve always wanted. Along with providing a comprehensive understanding of project management, Touro’s Project Management Advanced Certificate will also help if you decide to pursue any associated certifications, including the Prince2, PMP, ITIL, or Agile Certified Practitioner.
Completed over the course of two semesters, you’ll take a total of four classes that will help you build a solid foundation in Technology Project Management, teaching you both fundamental and advanced principles that will enhance your project management and business strategy toolkits. By completing the certificate, you’ll earn a total of 12 credits from the following four courses, which are part of the current Master of Science in Project Management curriculum:
- Information Technology Project Management which introduces Project Management best practices
- Advanced Information Technology Project Management which defines guidelines for bringing order to the chaotic world of IT projects.
- IT Service Managementwhich delves into industry standards and Project Management theory as it applies to IT
- Agile Project Managemen which covers advanced Agile methodologies like Scrum, XP Lean, and Kanban.
After you’ve finished all four classes, you’ll have a well-rounded academic education in Project Management that will qualify you to be hired for more advanced positions in technology project management. You can also take the 12 credits you earn through the Advanced Certificate in Project Management and apply them toward Touro University Graduate School of Technology’s Master of Science degree in Information Systems with a concentration in Project Management at any time.
Ready to learn more? Contact Touro University Graduate School of Technology to find out how you can apply for your Project Management Advanced Certificateand finally start building the technology career you deserve!
Touro Summer Design Lab Helps Students Take Their Skills to the Next Level
How one group of students is staying connected and creating content for real-world clients during their summer break. By Elizabeth Nelson
For many students, summer is a time to put their laptops aside and take a much-deserved break from studying. But as vital as it is to relax and recharge, maintaining some semblance of structure and keeping their skills sharp is important, too. That’s why Touro Professor Kevin Sartain created his Summer Design Lab, where students have the chance to work on projects and problem-solve in a group setting—and even get the opportunity to build their portfolios and work with prospective clients.
... “I’ve been wanting to do this for many years,” Sartain explains. “With all of this weirdness we’re going through, working from home and teaching on Zoom, I decided this was the perfect time to give it a go.” Though the program was originally intended to focus on web design — Sartain teaches web design — it organically turned into a general design lab, where both undergraduate and graduate students work on a variety of projects.
“I’ve got about 13 students, and we meet once a week, on Wednesday afternoons, for an hour or two,” says Sartain. “We’re creating an online gallery to showcase the best work from both the grad and undergrad programs, and we’re also working on a bunch of marketing flyers for Touro. It’s really cool, because it’s different from their regular classes,” he says. “Instead of just creating things for their portfolios, they’re actually dealing with a client and creating something real.”
The value of real-world experience
Sartain says that many of his students have never before worked with actual clients, and through this Summer Design Lab, they’ll get to experience the difference between creating designs for their own portfolios and making them for someone else. “I have eight students working on the Touro flyer, and the client is only going to choose four designs. That means the other four are going to have to learn how to cope with rejection—just like in the real world.”
For students, the value of having something in their portfolio that they created for a client can’t be overestimated. “When you graduate, it’s huge if you have something to show that you actually did for a client, because people want to see that you can deal with that. It’s easy for students to put 20 great-looking things in their portfolios that they spent months on. But when you put something in there that had a deadline, when you had a client that was telling you what to do, it’s a big deal.”
A request from a small business sparks an assignment
The inspiration for another project Sartain’s students are working on came from close by—across the street, in fact. “I became really good friends with my neighborhood dry cleaner,” says Sartain. “One day he asked me if I could build an app he could use to schedule pickups and deliveries, collect payments, things like that. I said sure, but I might just have my students work on it, and he said that would be really cool.”
Sartain is having his Summer Design Lab students work on a logo for the app, and design the front end elements, and plans to develop the backend himself later on. In the meantime, students will learn the different stages of web design, from wire-framing to building a fully responsive website. “I want some of these students who aren't web designers to just get a taste of it,” says Sartain.
An international team works together
Students use the free, online website- and app-building tool Weebly to work on their projects—although one student, who is attending the Summer Design Lab from her home in the Ukraine, found that Weebly was blocked from the country. “I’m having her switch over to working on the Touro marketing flyer, and another student, who is in Brazil, will move over to the Weebly team,” says Sartain.
It’s just another day in the life for any Touro professor, since the school takes pride in having a student body that hails from around the globe. The Summer Design Lab students have chosen to participate in this new course, which is tuition-free for enrolled Touro students and doesn’t offer credit hours, simply because of their passion for learning and their desire to take their skills to the next level.
See you next summer?
“I’d love to have other professors offer this in summers to come,” says Sartain. “I think we should have a bunch of these, and give students a wide range of subjects to choose from. I’m hoping to do a Web Design Lab next time.” Sartain’s students are currently creating a logo for the Summer Design Lab—keep your eyes open for it next summer!
Interested in learning to create websites, design flyers, build apps, and much more? Learn more about the programs at Touro’s Graduate School of Technology and what they can do for you.
Zoom-Bombing and Cyber-Hacking: Here’s How to Protect Yourself
Your hands aren’t the only thing you need to keep clean during the coronavirus pandemic. By Elizabeth Nelson
When the coronavirus (COVID-19) first began its rampage across our world, one of the first things to happen was that people suddenly became hyper-aware of their personal hygiene. “Wash your hands!” is the rallying cry of this pandemic, as we all strive to avoid becoming sick or unwittingly spreading the virus.
But now that many of us are working, teaching, and attending classes from home, another kind of hygiene has become extremely important as well: cyber hygiene. Following best practices to keep our home computers up-to-date and secure will ensure that we’re able to continue with our work and educational obligations for the duration of the stay-at-home order....
Touro Graduate School of Technology professors and cybersecurity experts Behrooz Khorsandi and Yosef Lehrman are on the front lines when it comes to the technical side of this crisis; we spoke to them about how we can protect ourselves from becoming victims of cyber-hacking, Zoom-bombing, and other online hazards.
Controlling access
“Someone was presenting his PhD thesis a couple of weeks ago on Zoom, and apparently a ‘Zoom bomb’ was issued, which caused his session to be compromised,” says Khorsandi. “It was a very embarrassing moment for this individual, in front of his professors and other faculty members,” said Khorsandi.
One way to keep your Zoom meetings secure, says Lehrman, is to make sure you never post the link in a public forum. “Anyone who has the link can access the conference,” he explains. “Obviously, this poses a problem.” He recommends posting meeting links only in controlled environments, as opposed to social media feeds or public web pages.
Another thing people can do is make their Zoom meetings password-protected. “This is a mechanism to control who has access to the online forum,” says Lehrman. Guests are sent to a Zoom “waiting room” until the host lets them into the meeting (or classroom). Once in the meeting, guests should not be allowed to share their screens. “Screen-sharing should be limited to the host or instructor,” says Lehrman.
Putting a policy in place
Khorsandi and Lehrman emphasize that there will always be a trade-off when it comes to security and user-friendliness. “How easy do you want to make it for students or employees to access meetings and material, in light of the possible implications of compromise?” asks Khorsandi. “If it’s too difficult for the users, they’ll figure out a way around security restrictions.”
The answer to the accessibility/security conundrum, Khorsandi and Lehrman believe, lies in having a solid telework or distance learning policy in place. “I would make the policy number one, before anything else can be done,'' says Khorsandi. “Employees, instructors, and students need to know the agreed-upon policy by the organization or institution.” He suggests an email or short training session to go over the policy and make sure people understand the importance of information security. “The key idea is communication in regards to policies—what's permitted and what's not.”
What Does a Corporate Trainer Do?
Touro Graduate School of Technology/Instructional Technology alumna Sherisse Brown talks about her role as a corporate trainer in the EdTech world, and shares the five essential skills a corporate trainer should have. By Elizabeth Nelson
If you’ve ever sent an email, checked your account balance on a mobile banking app, or downloaded a photo onto your smartphone, then you’ve used cloud computing technology — or “the cloud,” as it’s often called.
As the education and outreach coordinator at a medical library, Sherisse Brown occasionally found herself with the chance to provide instruction to various groups of people. “My job had many different aspects. I was not primarily focused on training, but when I had the opportunity to lead a training, I definitely enjoyed it,” she explained recently. “That’s what motivated me to go back to school —and I chose Touro Graduate School of Technology because they had a program that focused on corporate training.”
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Touro GST’s Master of Science in Instructional Technology degree prepares graduates to pursue a number of exciting and lucrative careers, including a career as a corporate trainer. But what exactly does a corporate trainer do—and what skills are needed to excel in this role? We talked to Brown, now a corporate trainer and learning specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine, about what it takes to become a corporate trainer, the difference between a corporate trainer and a corporate designer, and why she chose Touro to take her to the next stage of her career.
TechSpec: For someone who is unfamiliar with the job, can you give a brief overview of what a corporate trainer does?
Sherisse Brown:
Simply put, a corporate trainer is responsible for providing specific training to all employees in an organization to increase their productivity, which includes their skills and knowledge. Corporate trainers work with other managers to find where there is a skill gap, and figure out where they can provide training to fill those gaps.
TS: Can you explain what the difference is between a corporate trainer and a corporate designer?
SB: First off, as a corporate trainer you need to have excellent communication and presentation skills. That’s vital. Good time management is another important one. You also need to be proficient in Microsoft Office, especially PowerPoint. And these days, I would add that you need strong video production skills, because with what’s going on in the world, with the pandemic, you have to do more virtual training. I’m doing remote trainings through Zoom, and having strong video editing skills is really important, whether it’s Camtasia or another type of software.
In general, I’d say you need to be able to stay on track with trends and technology, and be able to carry those skills over when you’re actually doing a presentation. Beyond that, it’s important to have a good grasp of adult learning theories and practices—understanding the different ways that adults learn, and some of the principles related to that. You need to be able to provide training that is engaging and motivational, and you need to be able to assess how things went in evaluations after the training.
TS: How did you decide to become a corporate trainer, and how did you discover the Instructional Technology program at Touro GST?
SB: I worked in a library for many years, moving into different roles every four or five years, working in many different departments and learning many different aspects of the business, and I knew I wanted to move more into the corporate field. As a corporate trainer, an advanced degree is definitely preferred, so I decided to invest in going back to school to receive my Master’s degree.
To make a long story short, what drew me to Touro is that they were offering a free class on photography, I attended the class, I enjoyed it, and afterward the Dean of the Graduate School of Technology, Dr. Issac Herskowitz, came in with some other faculty to talk about their programs. I stayed behind and got to hear more about the corporate trainer program, and it seemed like a perfect fit for me. Everyone was so warm and friendly, and answered all my questions—and on top of that, the cost was reasonable. Also, the classes were a hybrid of online and in-person, which appealed to me because I was working full-time and I was concerned about how I was going to take on the responsibility of completing a Master’s degree while continuing to work.
Basically, the faculty provided excellent instruction in every class that I took, and that played a key role in where I am today. The corporate trainer track at Touro gave me so many options, so when I graduated, I could look for jobs not only as a corporate trainer, but as a developer, or an instructional designer—there’s a lot of overlap in those fields, and I felt I could do so many different things with my degree. That's why I definitely recommend the program at Touro GST, because it offers so many possibilities. For me, because of my background working in a college and the skills that I had, everything just kind of fell into place, and I realized my ultimate goal of becoming a corporate trainer.
Now, I’m officially part of the Alumni Mentor Program at Touro, and two or three times a year, I’m a guest speaker at Professor Marty Hersowitz’s class, Effective Oral and Written Communication for Managers.
Find out how Touro Graduate School of Technology can help you realize your career goals.Click here for more information about their corporate design and other programs, now enrolling for the fall semester!
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