Careers used to be simple. Earn your bachelor’s degree, land a well-paying job, and work away until retirement. Over time, that simple model has gotten more complicated. Starting and maintaining a career is no longer a one-and-done deal but a game of upskilling and reskilling to remain relevant in the workplace. Enter GetSmarter, a 2U, Inc. brand.
In recent years, we’ve seen an increasingly volatile and changing job market that has prompted multiple career reinventions. Throw in a pandemic-induced recession and accelerated automation, and we’re looking at what the World Economic Forum referred to as a “double-disruption” scenario.
Caught in between these changes are workers who have either been rendered unemployed or stand at the precipice of it. To stay relevant, workers have turned to upskilling, spurred by the belief that new skills attract new opportunities.
The bad news is that going back to school almost always comes with a demanding schedule and a long time to completion. The good news? You can avoid both and still unlock higher-value careers.
2U and GetSmarter: A Strong Partnership
In 2008, 2U established its presence in the United States as an online education solution provider that offers fully-fledged online degree programs. Its mission was simple: to eliminate the back row in higher education. By utilizing the digital space, students who once sat in the dark corners of the classroom can finally sit front and center on the screen.
It was this philosophy that caught the attention of many. Four years after its inception, Forbes named 2U one of the “10 startups changing the world.” In 2016, Inc Magazine listed 2U as among the “10 tech companies helping humanity.” Amid such recognition, 2U identified an opportunity to tap professionals who needed to upskill but didn’t necessarily have the time to earn a degree.
GetSmarter, a South African-based startup that delivers a portfolio of short-term online courses, caught their attention. Its guiding mission: to improve a million lives by 2030 through expert online education. Although GetSmarter offered a different learning product, it was similar to 2U in many ways.
For one, both operated on a similar strategy: forging ties with top-tier universities and providing instruction that’s just as competitive as what’s offered in brick-and-mortar institutions. Second, and more importantly, both companies have a shared sense of purpose: to provide quality education to working professionals around the world.
With goals that aligned like this, a partnership between the two companies only seemed inevitable. With 2U’s resources and technology, GetSmarter could expand its reach worldwide. In the same vein, through university short courses delivered in collaboration with GetSmarter, 2U could finally provide a comprehensive and accessible suite of professional development services.
And so in 2017, after nearly a decade of coexisting, 2U acquired GetSmarter.
How GetSmarter Disrupts Learning and Development Trends
In 2019, the Harvard Business Review published an article titled “When Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development.” The title itself is telling, but the details are damning. According to the report, 75 percent of managers are dissatisfied with their Learning and Development function.
Meeting them are the 88 percent of employees who were unable to apply the skills they learned from the L&D programs to do their jobs. The disconnect stemmed from a range of factors, including learning the wrong things, for the wrong reasons, and at the wrong time.
GetSmarter turns the tide by tackling these flaws head-on. Since its inception, GetSmarter has tailored its services to supporting career builders. And it’s precisely because of this responsibility that quality remains top of mind for GetSmarter from selection to delivery of university short courses. So, how does it keep quality learning in check?
1. University Partners
GetSmarter separates itself from other online learning platforms by delivering short courses developed in collaboration with premier universities. How premier, you ask? Just recently, Times Higher Education published its annual ranking of the top universities worldwide, as measured by their teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.
Of the top eight universities identified, seven have partnered with GetSmarter. Among these are Stanford University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Yale University. From the first step, GetSmarter makes sure that its university partners have tried and tested expertise in delivering quality education. It doesn’t stop there.
2. Data-Driven Course Selection
GetSmarter never goes in blindly. Knowing the role that one’s education plays in the job market, GetSmarter ensures that the University online short courses it delivers are never out of touch with what the employers need.
Its process is simple. Leveraging its team of market researchers and data analysts, the GetSmarter team studies the “future of work” trends, industry growth, and the jobs and skills landscapes before jumping into the course selection process. This eliminates the guesswork that goes into wondering whether a course has value beyond the classroom or not. With GetSmarter, it always does.
3. Outcomes-Based Design
When Harvard Business Review identified learning for the wrong reasons as one of the culprits behind ineffective L&D programs, it meant that the onus of career growth is placed on the credits earned, not the skills.
GetSmarter flips the order of priority by using a range of instructional efforts that direct participants toward the desired outcome—that is, gaining market-led skills. In other words, every lesson and activity you take—from the weekly content and activities to the live sessions—is intentional.
As for keeping score, completion of a University online short course will earn you a certificate awarded by GetSmarter’s university partner. Put simply, you don’t just take home a bag of new skills, you also get to demonstrate your commitment to continuously learn and grow. That’s something that’s not taken lightly by employers.
4. People-Mediated Delivery
Because GetSmarter is, in and of itself, an education partner for working adults, two things guide its delivery of online short courses in collaboration with its university partners. First is the understanding that you can’t be in front of your screen 24/7.
This is why their online short courses are self-paced and broken down into bite-sized modules. This format gives you the freedom of learning without being tethered to your screen.
Despite that, accountability is never off the table. That’s to say that the modules and activities come with incremental deadlines and corresponding grades. So while you’re free to learn at your pace, you’re never so free as to neglect your studies.
Second is the understanding that students learn best within an engaging environment. GetSmarter makes the impersonal personal by leveraging both peer and guided learning.
Upon enrollment, you gain access to a team of Success Advisers who will be there to guide you through your chosen online short course. Subject-matter experts engage with participants through discussion boards as well as provide feedback to participants on their weekly assignments.
On the peer-learning side is a global cohort of other working professionals. This allows you to share insights and experiences with individuals who are on the same journey toward career advancement as you are.
Put these all together, and you get learning and development programs that bank on relevance. Put simply, GetSmarter works toward ensuring that whatever you learn and however you learn is aligned with the state of the job market. Every step GetSmarter takes is informed, from the moment it collaborates with its university partners to the moment the University online short courses are rolled out into the market.
GetSmarter: Top University Online Short Courses
A quick look at GetSmarter’s website will show you nearly 200 short courses developed in collaboration with 18 universities. Below are a selection of courses that are designed to meet some of the most in-demand skills required for today’s workplace.
1. University of Cambridge: Communicating for Influence and Impact
- Duration: 8 weeks (excluding one-week orientation)
- Cost: $3,102
What makes this course relevant? In 1974, a Harvard Business Review article read: “The problem of communicating has become the number-one cliche of our time.” Decades later, the statement still rings true, perhaps louder than before. As online interaction among colleagues and customers becomes the new normal, communication has become more critical than ever and also trickier.
This course revolves around one simple principle: leadership is a conversation. By the end of it, you’ll learn how to communicate effectively for influence (to mobilize your team) and impact (to connect with your target audience).
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Artificial Intelligence – Implications for Business Strategy
- Duration: 6 weeks (excluding one-week orientation)
- Cost: $3,200
What makes this course relevant? It used to be that business and IT could exist independently of each other. Now, the former can’t thrive without the latter. This course will walk you through how artificial intelligence and machine learning help create a more intelligent organization.
The bonus: because automation has permeated a range of organizations, leaders, and managers from nearly every industry stand to gain relevant skills and insights from this course.
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Blockchain Technologies – Business Innovation and Application
- Duration: 6 weeks (excluding one-week orientation)
- Cost: $3,500
What makes this course relevant? The short answer: blockchain emerged as LinkedIn’s most in-demand hard skill in 2020, and it’s bound to remain a hot commodity. However, lack of blockchain talent meets this increasing demand as seen in the four-fold increase of blockchain-related job postings on LinkedIn.
Stay ahead of the curve, and explore how blockchain technologies (no, it’s not all about Bitcoin) drive businesses in terms of efficiency, transparency, and security. By the end of the course, you’ll have firsthand experience of producing a primer for a blockchain-based solution to a business problem within your field.
4. Northwestern University: Strategic Change Management
- Duration: 8 weeks (excluding one-week orientation)
- Cost: $2,800
What makes this course relevant? As the saying goes, “The only thing constant in life is change.” And change it is. As tech continues to dominate the global economy, its tendency to change is sure to follow. Organizations that fail to adapt either sink or teeter at the edge of a cliff. The only solution at hand is the ability to anticipate changes and respond in kind.
How best can you outfit your team members with the right mindset, skills, and agility to adapt to changes? What strategies can you take to mitigate any negative consequences that follow certain organizational or market changes? Learn all that and more in this course.
5. University of Oxford: Oxford Executive Leadership Programme
- Duration: 8 weeks (excluding one-week orientation)
- Cost: $3,290
What makes this course relevant? Leaders are made, not born. This university short course hones you into one. Evaluate your weaknesses and tap into leadership strategies that will drive your growth as a leader. This course will equip you with the core leadership skills you’ll need, including power and influence, authenticity and adaptability, and diversity.
6. Yale University: Leading Global Virtual Teams
- Duration: 6 weeks (excluding one-week orientation)
- Cost: $2,500
What makes this course relevant? With the rate by which work is moving from brick-and-mortar offices into the living room, one cannot overstate the importance of this course. Let’s check the figures.
One in four Americans is expected to work remotely in 2021. By 2025, the number is projected to increase to a total of 36.2 million Americans. This means that leaders will have to develop strategies to accommodate a fully remote workforce.
This course will walk you through the challenges inherent to working virtually, from the lack of face-to-face supervision to work-from-home distractions, and how to tackle each one by one.
Still on the fence about enrolling in any of these online short courses? Here’s another incentive: GetSmarter affords you three ways to pay for your education. That is, through upfront payment, a part payment plan, and, the most appealing of all, employer assistance.
Remember that taking the University online short courses is anything but a personal pursuit. Rather, doing so triggers a domino effect that steers your team and organization toward their desired outcomes and expectations. So, consider securing that employer assistance before considering the other two options.
Is GetSmarter Right for You?
We all know the story by heart: in 2020, a pandemic spread across the globe. In a matter of months, industries were shut down, businesses were shut closed, and employees were shut out of their jobs. “Unemployment” and “uncertainty” became the buzzwords of the year. Along with these, another emerged: “upskilling.”
GetSmarter is working to stand at the forefront of this initiative by creating thousands of career-ready professionals through a new class of learning experience. The numbers back its efforts. Over the years, GetSmarter has reached over 168,000 students from 180 countries. Of its enrollees, 90 percent have completed their training—an impressive feat for any learning platform, online or offline.
Despite its successes, GetSmarter doesn’t show any signs of stopping, never straying from its initial mission of improving the lives of one million working adults by 2030. Don’t get left behind. See what they can offer and be one of the million.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
