Photo- screenshot provided by Victoria Durgin
By Kayla Brown, Arts & Entertainment Editor
Students can now learn to take photographs, design web pages, manage their time wisely and more, all from the comfort of their own home.
On April 7, all Susquehanna students and faculty gained access to LinkedIn Learning, a tool that provides digital courses and how-to videos on a variety of subjects.
This program aids students in developing skills that are wanted and expected by employers as well as handy everyday skills, according to the website and Susquehanna staff involved in the decision to bring the program to the university.
“Not only can this help students, faculty, and staff excel in their classes/careers/future careers, but there is also an opportunity to enhance knowledge on a personal level. You can take courses based on personal interest to help start a side hobby, become better at a certain program, or just expand your knowledge because you want to learn,” Chief Information Officer Jennifer Servedio said.
On the website, when someone logs in to LinkedIn Learning, they are given the option to connect a LinkedIn profile, which allows any accomplishments achieved through courses to appear on their personal profile.
After a person sets up their account, LinkedIn recommends videos and courses that a person may find interesting and/or useful.
However, these are not the only available courses. Under the browse tab, there are three main subjects: Business, Creative and Technology. Within each of these subjects, there are three sections: Subjects, Software and Learning Path.
Under each section, there are thousands of courses to pick from. To narrow down the search, there is an option for filters on the side of the page.
These courses have been created by different universities, employers and people who specialize in specific areas of expertise, according to the LinkedIn site.
According to Servedio, professors will be able to upload their course syllabus and students will be able to work through LinkedIn to further their knowledge in certain courses they take at Susquehanna.
Servedio, who has been at Susquehanna for five months, said that she has been exploring LinkedIn Learning since her arrival after she witnessed the success of it at her former employer.
According to Servedio, when the virus hit and everything went remote for the semester, the administration believed that it was the perfect opportunity to deploy it to everyone.
For this to work, Servedio said there has been involvement from numerous departments and a partnership with University Marketing and Communications to drum up interest for and purchase the program.
Susquehanna purchased a full license for the university, which means that anyone with a Susquehanna University email will have access to LinkedIn Learning. This means that until a person’s email is deleted, which usually happens in the June or July after their graduation, they have access to LinkedIn Learning.
That is also the same process for any other programs or software that students, faculty and staff receive through the university.
Servedio said she thinks licensing LinkedIn Learning for the university wouldn’t have been possible without IT Office and Help Desk Coordinator Shayla Heimbach who worked with the IT staff and LinkedIn Learning to create a successful environment for our users as well as Director of Strategic Communication Jennifer Spotts who created the video that officially announced this new service.