Jamf and Mesa Community College prepare students for the future

A caring educator

Alvin Bridges has enormous ambitions for his college students.

In 2023, the Associate Vice President of College Technology Services at Mesa Community College (MCC) in Mesa, Arizona, discovered that many of his struggling students were trying to do their homework on their phones.

After he saw excellent results from instituting an iPad program to aid students, he looked around for more ways to support students at MCC, 48% of whom are the first in their families to attend college.

Diversifying tech

He also has ambitions for the tech field.

Multiple studies show that a diverse workforce results in as much as 33% higher financial returns, more flexible thinking and more innovation. However, "The IT space is very non-diverse," says Bridges. "Not a lot of women, minorities or first-generation college students."

Asking for help

Bridges uses Jamf to manage and protect Apple devices at the school, and he knows that many jobs in IT require Jamf certifications. He turned to Jamf to ask for help creating a curriculum for students interested in these certifications and learning about IT management.

Why Jamf?

Jamf has been a strategic partner with Mesa for the last seven years.

"Jamf has done whatever is possible to make us successful, says Bridges. "Giving opportunities to try and test things, introducing us to other customers doing things similar to us." This help was not necessarily financially beneficial to Jamf, he adds, "but they did it."

"There is no other strategic partner in the world I’d rather do with this than a company that has invested so much emotional energy into my college and my situation as a Jamf engineer than this company," he continues. "No other place."

Jamf Training Foundation Course

Together, Bridges and Jamf created an 8-week college course: "Jamf Training Foundation" that teaches Jamf Pro and Jamf Protect to students, offering them a hands-on internship in the college IT department afterward.

The course consists of an instructor-led, hands-on program containing the Jamf 100 Course, Jamf 170 Course, and Jamf 200 Course. It is designed to teach the skills needed to manage, secure and support Apple devices. The training offers a core understanding of Jamf Pro and Jamf Protect as well as an enterprise-focused examination of the macOS, iOS and iPadOS platforms.

It includes:

• Jamf Pro configuration
• Jamf Protect
• Device enrollment
• Distributing App Store apps
• Building and managing deployment packages
• Configuration and settings for computers and mobile devices
• Device security
• A scripting overview (Bash)
• An introduction to the security standards.

Classroom environment

The students have their own Jamf classroom, and the instructor for the first course offering was so excited about what these students will do that he also began showing them job listings that required Jamf certifications. This gave students who may not have a firm foundation in the tech world a clear, specific path to job seeking.

Students not only learn the foundations of macOS and iOS support, in the classroom; they also get hands-on learning about how Jamf operates and how to use it in the enterprise.

Students served

"The majority of students enrolled in this course come from a food-unstable environment and are part of a marginalized or underrepresented population in tech," says Bridges.

"In some instances," continues Bridges, "our students need to make decisions between buying their books or buying food."

"Going through this process is going to change the lives of people whose trajectory was not high," continues Bridges. "Jamf partnering with us in this process makes this a realistic dream for people sitting out in the courtyard thinking to themselves: 'I may get this degree, but what am I going to do (for earnings) until I finish my bachelor’s degree?' And then, how do I get any job experience?"

Jamf and Bridges have offered them a solution.

First-year results

Nine students enrolled in this course. Nine out of the nine obtained a Jamf Certified Associate - Jamf Pro certification, and eight of the nine obtained certifications in Jamf Certified Associate - Jamf Protect and Jamf Certified Tech - Jamf Pro.

This incredibly high success rate is followed by an internship at MCC taught by Bridges, which functions as an on-ramp to a paid apprenticeship with an organization in the Phoenix area.

And it's working: two students from the first class are now employed as IT admins. A third, already employed in the industry, took the course to earn the certifications and to move up in his organization.

A jump-start for IT students

At the completion of this course and the two internships, these students will have multiple Apple and Jamf certifications— plus about a year of work experience. This is rare for students fresh out of school, especially with an Associate Degree. They can then move into the workforce as IT admins.

"Students not only learn Jamf," says Bridges, "they learn how to use Jamf and then have an opportunity to have an inside internship and then a secondary internship. The part that’s hard is that unless you’re already an IT professional, you often can’t get your foot in the door. We’re solving that problem."

"If you look at what the market is like," says Bridges, "you need technicians, administrators, security people — these are all jobs that are necessary."

"Wrap that together in a year-and-a-half program, walking out not only with three certs but also with real-world hands-on work experience, you could walk out of here and command a salary that for a non-college graduate is nearly unheard of."

For Bridges, this is only the beginning.

He sees this course as a template to build on: additional courses in which students can earn advanced Jamf certifications at Mesa Community College.

But his ambitions don't stop there.

He wants other institutions to see Mesa Community College as an example to follow.

"Our goal is to show it can be done, so that everyone has the opportunity," says Bridges. "I want this everywhere. I want them at not only our school but also at other institutions."

He dreams of partnering with Arizona State University, adding on some coding such as Python classes, and rolling the experience and education into a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science.

"Can you imagine what that could do for a student?"

Student responses

Bridges' passion for this is inspiring.

And, of course, he has inspired students. The course and its ramp into the IT field are together helping many students see new opportunities for themselves and a brighter future.

For instance, MCC student Jackson Mirich earned Jamf certification in the Fall 2024 semester after earning an AppleCare Certificate of Completion in a previous course.

“I spoke with the professor Carl Cortez and he explained the possibilities the certification offered,” said Mirich. “Managing devices sounded really interesting to me and an important tool on the pathway to my future career goals. This semester I am taking a CIS course, which is an expansion on the Jamf materials.”

A life-changing experience

"We are truly helping to change student's lives —quite literally— with this offering," says Bridges. "Every Jamf should be proud!"