CBS Austin News: ACC could add to its partnership with Apple after announcement of new campus

by Adam Hammons

Austin Community College said it could add to its partnership program with Apple after Thursday’s announcement of a new campus in Austin.

ACC has partnered with Apple for the past year. It’s offered several classes teaching students how to code and develop apps for Apple. One of the programs is Apple Swift.

“Very, very beneficial for our students,” department chair of creative design technologies Garry Gaber said.

Gaber said Apple has provided advice and a software to help teach students the basics of coding. “The students learn coding in a very safe and a very easy environment,” Gaber said.

So many were happy to hear that Apple plans to build a new campus adding 5,000 new jobs. “We’ll be able to increase some of our programs and the size of those programs,” vice president of instruction Mike Midgley said.

Midgley said ACC can be a direct conduit for students to get jobs, but he said that’s not the goal of the program. “It is to train you to develop apps for Apple,” Midgley said. “There’s a lot of opportunity to go to work for one of those companies as well.”

Midgley said they are very connected with Apple and are working with the company to see what kind of jobs they’ll be needing in the future. He said with business operations also in Austin, Apple could also want positions other than just tech jobs. “You think of Apple, as for example, it’s all I.T., they have a huge business operations presence and so people who are studying accounting or business for example, lots of opportunities for those students,” Midgley said.

Students in the program were happy to hear the news. “I thought it was really cool, bring a lot of jobs,” student Justin St. Clair said.

St. Clair is learning how to develop video games. He said he may apply to Apple, but he may also apply to smaller video game developers in town.

Either way, he said this new campus should help him. “If you know coding you can really go anywhere,” St. Clair said.