V-School

Whether it’s enhancing your skills or learning to work for a new career entirely, public universities and colleges give opportunities for students to learn and gain practical skills. But what happens to students after they've gained their degree or certifications? Oftentimes, those same schools don’t help students get connected to jobs or experience real world projects. This is where V-School fills in the gap to teach, certify, apply real projects onto students, and help them get jobs afterwards.

In this week’s 1Million Cups presentation at the UVU BRC, Laney Kawaguchi, a representative of V-School, came in to talk about opportunities for both students and businesses alike. From the student side, they teach and certify for a lot of the technology careers like web design and cybersecurity. V-School is online and flexible to the student’s learning pace and schedule. They also give students the opportunity to work on real projects that need to be completed for both local and enterprise businesses. From small businesses to local organizations and even large corporations like Adobe will have real projects that V-School will connect students with. This might also include internships that can help streamline the job transition, but even if this does not happen, they help students succeed in their job search.

 

This sense of support and community that V-School provides is the very thing that inspires Laney to continue presenting this opportunity for people. As an alumni of V-School herself, she experienced that process and progress of participating in this online school. Starting in digital marketing and getting laid off from her job, she had lost hope in her skills. V-School was able to uplift her through their encouraging community and help with learning new skills and the job search. After working with Adobe for a year, V-School reached out to her to help them connect their students with jobs. Seeing how much this school has had a positive impact on her life, she wished to do the same.

 

Give people hope that they can learn new skills and that their soft skills are still meaningful to future careers.

 

Her journey through V-School inspired her to pursue this career and inspire others to do the same. To find hope and inspiration in themselves again. For her, success in V-School means getting more students connected with companies and big projects in the tech industry. This, in turn, will help scale V-School on a greater level to be able to help and teach anyone in the country about technology skills and job opportunities. 

Word of advice for starting your own business:

It’s okay to make mistakes and fail. Test ideas and let the data tell you if it is successful or not and be okay with pivoting the direction of your idea.

    - Laney Kawaguchi