Today’s globalization involves vastly increased flows of goods, services, and money across national borders. The movement of labor has also grown despite restrictions to migration by many countries. Cheaper and faster transport and communications help to make markets global both for goods and for labor. Products can be assembled in one place with parts from the other side of the world. Members of transnational families are working in different countries and diaspora are increasingly active and economically powerful. Students can pursue degree-oriented studies outside traditional campuses. This increased mobility in goods, money, services, people and ideas, fueled by an IT revolution, has changed the way people use and share information for personal, business, and social purposes.
The interactions of all these trends have substantial impacts on jobs and education. While on one side, an increased global labor force has put pressure on wages, on the other hand, new jobs opportunities emerge worldwide that require specialized training. In this globalized world, education is a passport for social advancement. Throughout the economy, occupations that require a college degree are growing twice as fast as others. Further, those who have the knowledge and skills to work effectively with Information Technology tools are in much better position to succeed.
The degrees in Local-to-Global Connectivity offered by the University of the World build upon understanding major global trends and local realities affecting job creation related to Information Technology. Both Associate’s and Master’s degrees aim at strengthening basic skills, equipping workers to advance in their professional careers as well as to establish their own business through the development of a set of selected competences so students can discover, assess, and take advantage of the different windows of opportunity that emerge from their greater global connectivity. The opportunities to design Learning Plans that interact with other degree foci are multiple.