UC San Diego Offers Eight Continuing Education Scholarships

Photos by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama highlighted the fact that the U.S. education system hasn't been producing enough job ready people with the highly specialized skills that many companies need to be competitive, particularly in the STEM areas of science, technology, engineering and math.

A theme of longstanding importance to President Obama is the centrality of science, technology, and innovation to America’s ongoing global leadership. However, according to a Department of Labor report from January 2013, there are more than 3 million jobs that American businesses cannot fill because of a lack of skilled applicants.

Because continuing education programs are needed to help even the college educated gain job ready skills to bridge to new areas of employment, UC San Diego Extension will help with eight full scholarships of up to $5,500 in 2013 for adults to pursue continuing education.

Four “Bridge to Employment Scholarships” for recent college graduates are being offered to pursue continuing education. Anyone who has received a bachelor’s degree or a graduate degree from any accredited college or university within the last five years is eligible.

Another four “Change the World” merit scholarships are being offered to University of California alumni. Applicants do not need to live in the San Diego area because more than two dozen certificate programs are offered online. All UC alumni who have received a bachelor’s degree or a graduate degree from any UC campus are eligible.

Applicants for both scholarships should complete the online form at the extension.ucsd.edu/scholarships website before the next deadline date of April 15, 2013.

What does it mean to change the world? The definition is purposely broad, and can range from cultural enrichment to regional economic development. UC San Diego Extension is looking to reward alumni with the promise and potential to improve the quality of life in California, and beyond.

One of last year’s winners was UC San Diego computer sciences graduate Albert Chu, who was selected to receive a “Change the World” Scholarship to study video and imaging technologies in order to further his research of object detection and motion/pose estimation technology.

The UC San Diego Extension Scholarship Committee cited his commitment to developing an Android app that would allow the user to control the device by the movement of their face.

“I would like to apply that to mobile device programming and develop an app that takes as input the user's face pose and allow the user to navigate the interface with a turn of the face,” said Chu, currently a software engineer at General Atomics.

Along with the novelty this technology provides to the public, it could also drastically improve the lives of those who are disabled, allowing them easier operation of such devices. That would be a “world changing” benefit for many.

Some of the areas of possible study at UC San Diego Extension for career changers or those wishing to add new skills to their resume include: Accounting; Business; Digital Arts; Education; Engineering; English Language Studies; Foreign Languages; Healthcare and Behavioral Sciences; Humanities and Writing; Information Technology and Software Engineering; Law; Leadership and Management Development; Life Sciences; Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health; Photography, Art and Music, and Public Service and Social Responsibility. Details on the 92 certificate programs can be found at www.extension.ucsd.edu.

For the convenience of working adults, continuing education courses are held online or evenings and weekends on the UC San Diego main campus and two other locations: the Extension University City  Center and the Extension Mission Valley Center.