At the Worldwide Partner Conference on Wednesday, Microsoft Corporation announced the Microsoft Professional Degree (MPD) program. The first-of-its-kind program will be offering employer-endorsed and university-caliber curriculum for professionals at any given stage of their careers.
The new MPD program is an initiative from Microsoft which will provide real world knowledge and hands-on experience to professionals. Moreover, the program will also assist the experts to grow their skills in a critical and certain field. The program is also expected to equip the individuals with high-tech employment.
The initial MPD program offering is in data science, with all courseware available on edX.org, the nonprofit online learning destination was founded by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Top Microsoft executive, Steven Guggenheimer, while speaking about the course stated that:
“The Microsoft Professional Degree will be offered via edX, as well as through learning-as-a-service offerings delivered through partners, to meet customers’ evolving training needs and to help close the skills gap we are seeing across a number of industries”
Plenty of research has been done in the field of Data Science
For the past couple of months, over 650 Microsoft employees and 200 pioneering partners have participated in a fastened preview to assess and validate this new data science curriculum. It was learnt that a significant skills gap exists in the field of data science. As a result, Microsoft after identifying the opportunity designed its initial curriculum to deliver the critical skills and experiences that are required for success in the data science field. The course also has enormous amount of employment opportunities.
One of the major characteristics of MPD program will be that it would be targeting fresh entrants in the market. Furthermore, people who are at their mid-career level will also get profited from the program as it promises to strengthen their skill set and continue advancing in the competitive tech industry. Via the MDP, participants will get access to invaluable real-world data, Microsoft’s tools and the open source community which includes Excel, Power BI and Cortana Analytics to R and Python. The course will be available on edX soon. You can sign up for it here.
image credit: venturebeat.
