Seattle U Pilots Google Cloud Career Event

Seattle U’s Career Engagement Office sponsored 20 events for students in October about careers in engineering and tech during its second annual Engineering and Tech Takeover. It culminated on Oct. 18 with the Google Hero Interactive Lab Competition, a traveling program sponsored by Google’s Cloud Platform.

Seattle U was one of 11 universities asked to host a pilot program that Google is using to promote cloud computing career options.

The Cloud Hero event brought together more than 45 students from multiple disciplines, including student teams from Seattle area community colleges, for a career-building experience. The Career Engagement Office partnered with Google Cloud Platform and Seattle University’s student chapter of Association for Computing Machinery to organize this interactive event.

“We were thrilled to bring the Google Cloud Hero experience to Seattle U and look forward to continuing to connect with students to help them explore career opportunities in today’s technologically advanced world,” said Leslie Redd, part of the Google Cloud team.

Cloud Hero is a software development and IT operations gaming experience where participants complete a series of tasks using Google Cloud. During the three-hour session, students heard from Google Cloud representatives about why cloud solutions are integral to careers of the future and received information about learning and career opportunities at Google.

The Cloud Hero game is played through an interactive environment called Qwiklabs, where players gain points the faster they move through the labs.

Throughout the Engineering and Tech Takeover, students engaged in professional panels, including one for women in technology and one for using your liberal arts degree in the tech space. There were also resume reviews by discipline, mentoring activities, industry and organizational information sessions and a career fair.

“Our team is thrilled to have the level of collaboration from external and campus partners to bring these kinds of career development experiences to Seattle U students,” said Hilary Flanagan, executive director of the Career Engagement Office. 

Collaborators included industry partners, student organizations, academic departments and both the Albers Placement Center and Office of Alumni Engagement teams.