San Jose State University rockets towards the top of college rankings

The Wall Street Journal has dramatically boosted SJSU's ranking in their 2025 "best colleges" list. In fact, it rose a whopping 157 places from being in 173rd place last year to the 16th best college in the United States.

How is this possible? San Jose State had the highest average graduate salary of all public schools. That includes UC Berkeley, Cal Poly, and San Francisco State. Overall, SJSU ranked 4th in California for all public universities.

SJSU also has several new projects on the horizon to replace aging buildings, creative student housing, and a prime location in Downtown San Jose. This could just be the beginning. 

Source: SFGATE

Downtown San Jose is getting a new high school

An 87-year-old private school called Hillbrook that is based in Los Gatos is expanding to Downtown San Jose. The school is leasing two historic buildings: the Moir Building at 227 N. First Street and the San Jose Armory at 240 N. Second Street. These buildings will be leased for at least 25 years, which will breathe some new life to the area around St. James Park.

The school was specifically seeking a Downtown San Jose location so that they can partner with local nonprofits, businesses, and SJSU.  Social impact and entrepreneurship are two of the tenants the high school wants to focus on. 

It will take two years to get the buildings ready and total enrollment for the school is expected to reach 300 students. If you have kids in grade school and this is sounding interesting so far... start saving. Today's tuition for Hillbrook goes all the way up to $40,700 per year.

Source: San Jose Spotlight

New university opening in Downtown San Jose with business and tech degrees

Here is a story I did not see coming. California Miramar University is planning to open a campus in Downtown San Jose's SoFA District. The University will operate out of 505 S. Market St. in a two-story building formerly occupied by Xactly.

California Miramar University will offer Bachelor's Degrees in data science and business management. More importantly, they will offer a Master's Degree in AI. 

San Jose's ambition is to be the global AI capital. Already there are plans to incubate 30-40 AI startups in Downtown San Jose. It makes sense to develop talent in San Jose Universities and then keep that talent in the area to foster a complete AI ecosystem. It's not just software, the headquarters for the leading companies that create AI hardware are all within 10 miles of Downtown San Jose (Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Google, etc).

Tuition at California Miramar University is expected to range from $11-12k per year, which is surprisingly affordable for higher education.

Source: FOX2 KTVU

San Jose is the 3rd most educated city in the US

It should come as no surprise that a region overflowing with tech talent is also one of the most educated in the country. The San Jose metro ranked third when it comes to education. The study looked at the 150 largest metros and evaluated the number of adults with college degrees as well as the quality of schools in the region. Ann Arbor came in 1st place, followed by the DC area. SF/Oakland came in 5th and New York was 29th.

Source: WalletHub, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

General Assembly expanding classes to San Jose

General Assembly is a global learning company that specializes in training programs for high-demand skills. They have just expanded in the Bay Area and are now offering their most popular classes and workshops in coding, data, business, and design in San Jose. Their classrooms are currently located in the WeWork co-working space in Downtown San Jose. As a side-note, they will be running their first ever User Experience Design Part Time course on 1/31.

Below is some additional information on their recent expansion, but if you are in the market for new technical skills head over to their website for a full list of classes.

Expansion in U.S. and Australia  
More than 350,000 students have come to one of GA's existing 15 campuses to either attend an event or acquire new skills through any one of the company's educational offerings. Earlier this year, GA opened its 15th campus in Denver and to make these skills even more accessible. GA will now be offering events, classes, workshops and opportunities for GA's online students to engage with the GA community in the following cities:

• San Jose, California 
• Arlington, Virginia 
• Brisbane/Sunshine Coast, Queensland 
• Brooklyn, New York
• Dallas, Texas 
• Geelong, Victoria 
• Irvine/Orange County, California 
• Raleigh, North Carolina

An additional U.S. market will be announced before end of year, bringing General Assembly's physical campus count to 25 total campuses.

"From small businesses and startups to Fortune 500 brands, digital skill sets have never been more in demand. It is no coincidence that the skills helping companies to evolve - mobile development, data analytics, product management and user experience design - are the skills that we teach at General Assembly," said Anna Lindow, GM Campus  Education & Operations, General Assembly. "By expanding into new markets like Canada, and furthering our presence in existing Australian and U.S. regions, General Assembly will be able to empower even more individuals and add value to even more employers."   

SJSU Engineering program gets high honors

The U.S. New & World Report's 2017 college rankings listed SJSU's engineering program as the third-best public school program in the country. If you factor in all schools, SJSU's engineering program ties for 23rd place. After factoring in the tuition compared to private schools, the ROI is tough to beat. It seems like SJSU continues to build more and more prestige over time.

Last school year over 2,000 students graduated from SJSU's College of Engineering, which is 29% higher than the previous year.

Source: SVBJ

General Assembly is building a training campus in San Jose

General Assembly, an "Edtech" startup founded in 2011, already has 25,000 graduates from their 15 campuses across the globe. They train their students with practical skills that can be applied immediately to the most in-demand corporate jobs today (coding, web/app design, data science, marketing, et cetera).

They are expanding to 25 campuses by the end of the year and one of those will be in San Jose. The location is yet to be determined but they will host classes, workshops, and events at the new campus. Until the final space is acquired, they will be leveraging San Jose's co-working spaces--something they should be familiar with as General Assembly was originally going to be a co-working company.

General Assembly's only other Bay Area campus is in San Francisco.

Source: SVBJ

Coding Dojo doubled size of San Jose location

Coding Dojo launched its first San Jose location less than two years ago, running eight coding bootcamps a year with 15-20 students each (each bootcamp takes three months to complete). Today, more than 30 students a month are putting themselves through Coding Dojo's rigorous program.

In order to support all the extra demand, they doubled their footprint to 15,500 SQFT in a nearby building. The campus is now located at 1920 Zanker Road, Suite 20 and the program costs $13,495. For more info head to the Coding Dojo website.

Source: SVBJ

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 3rd most educated city in the US

Given that the tech industry is fueled by some of the brightest minds in the world, it should come as no surprise that San Jose ranks as one of the best educated cities in the country. WalletHub looked at the 150 largest metros in the US and compared nine key metrics such as percentage of adults with bachelor's degrees, public school rankings, University rankings, racial gaps in educational attainment, and gender gaps in educational attainment.

After all the numbers were crunched the San Jose metro came in 3rd on the list, only bested by Ann Arbor and Washington DC. Boston came in 6th followed by the San Francisco metro at #7. The same study ranked San Jose as #7 in 2014, so there is a positive trend in our area. To see the full list as well as more stats check out the source link below.

Source: WalletHub, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

The Tech opens nation's first interactive bioengineering exhibit

San Jose, Calif.,  — The Tech Museum of Innovation will empower visitors to play, tinker and design with the building blocks of life in BioDesign Studio, a new exhibit opening Friday, March 18. The exhibit will feature the nation’s first museum biotinkering space and an interactive exploration of how biology is technology.

“BioDesign Studio is an experience like no other,” said Tim Ritchie, president and CEO of The Tech. “This is a space where visitors of all ages can gain a deep understanding of their own power to use synthetic biology to solve big problems, like food security and climate change. We’ll be inspiring the next generation of biotech innovators.”

BioDesign Studio features five stations that break down heavy concepts, empowering visitors to play with DNA while nurturing their own ability to design and create with biology. “The people who need to solve the huge problems we face with global food and health 15 years down the road are the same people who will visit this exhibit right now,” said Romie Littrell, the exhibit’s developer and a leader in the DIY Bio movement. “It all begins with making them feel like biology is fun and interesting.”

Visitors will use lab equipment to create their own mix of colorful DNA; learn about genetic traits by “coding” the pattern of a bear’s fur; use computerized blocks to build new creatures and release them into a digital world to interact with other beings; explore how bioengineering could impact the future; and do hands­on activities in the BioTinkering Lab.

The BioTinkering Lab will, over time, play host to citizen science projects as well as drop­-in activities like creating mushroom bricks, in which visitors transform wood particles that would have been sent to landfills into sustainable building materials using mycelium.

“The world is really just starting to tap into the amazing potential of mycelium for manufacturing,” said Anja Scholze, biotech experience designer at The Tech. “We love giving our visitors a chance to explore something so fresh.”

Planned to last for 10 years, the exhibition, like biology itself, will evolve. The $5 million exhibit was made possible by several generous foundations including the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Franklin and Catherine Johnson Foundation.

For more information: thetech.org/biodesignstudio

Saturday Stats: College Students Graduating From "Top-25" Schools are Flocking to San Jose

A recent report by Earnst shows how graduates at the top 25 universities in the country are flocking to the west coast. One very interesting stat is that 57% of recent grads in the San Jose Metro studied somewhere else. In comparison that number is just 31% for New York and 25% for Boston. The only Metro that beat San Jose was San Francisco at 58%.

Source: SVBJ

Saturday Stats: San Jose Metro is the #1 Mid-sized Region for College Students

The American Institute for Economic Research ranked San Jose as the top metro area for prospective collect students in a recent study. They defined a mid-sized metro as having a population between 1 and 2.5 million and the criteria included work opportunities, cost of rent, culture, diversity, and access to bars and restaurants.

Not surprisingly, we excelled at metrics tied to jobs, the economy, at STEM (science, technology, and math). San Jose was also first in diversity and #4 when it comes to bars and restaurants. However, our metro struggled when it came to rent costs and entertainment.

Austin came in second place followed by Pittsburgh, Raleigh, and Salt Lake City. You can access our profile right over here.

Source: SVBJ

San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce's 19th Annual Excellence in Education Awards

Just in time for Super Bowl 50, Joe Montana is giving a keynote speech at the Fairmont as part of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce's signature event: Legends & Leaders. Also on the agenda is the 19th Annual Excellence in Education Awards where the SJSV chamber will distribute awards for Student, Teacher, and Principal of the year. The event will run from 6-9pm on November 19th and registration is required.

For more information, please read the press release below or head over to http://www.sjchamber.com

San José, CA—The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce’s 19th annual Excellence in Education Awards will take place Thursday, Nov. 19 at The Fairmont in San Jose. The awards will be given out at the SJSV Chamber’s annual signature event, Legends & Leaders, and will have keynote speaker four-time Super Bowl Champion Joe Montana.

The 2015 Excellence in Education Awards recipients are:

• Alejandra Fraume Valencia, Gunderson High School—Student of the Year
• Christian Rubalcaba, Selma Olinder Elementary School—Teacher of the Year
• Maria Evans, Washington Elementary School—Principal of the Year

Alejandra was our top choice not only because she is a great student academically-speaking but also because both her peers as well as teachers see her as a leader. She helped her school’s Tennis Team become division champions—the school’s first—and through it all, she made personal sacrifices because of her need to financially help her family (she had to quit tennis because of her job).

Rubalcaba also rose to the top of the nominee list. He is not only an effective leader inside his own classroom, but his leadership and passion extend into his district (impacting curriculum, teaching methods, etc.) as well as the parent community (through his home visits to all his students). He is also an innovator, utilizing technology through his monthly Skype sessions to put his classroom in direct contact with business, education and professional leaders from across the country.

Evans, with her endless dedication to her school community and innovative thinking in terms of collaborative partners to help her better her school set her apart from her peers.

“I’m excited to have been invited to be part of this signature Silicon Valley event,” Joe Montana said. “Our local students and educators are an integral part of our communities and celebrating them through the Legends & Leaders’ Excellence in Education awards is a great way to highlight what’s taking place in our classrooms.”

The Excellence in Education awards first began in 1996 and recognize students, teachers and administrators within the County of Santa Clara that embody the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce’s spirit of acting as a convener, collaborator and champion within their community.

Along with public recognition, the SJSV Chamber also offers recipients educational grants. Over the course of the program’s history, these grants have totaled more than $80,000.

“These students and educators have a direct impact on the region’s economy: as the future workforce, and, in many cases, as our future leaders,” SJSV Chamber President & CEO Matt Mahood said. “As the organization trusted to be the voice of the businesses, many of which have a direct impact on our region’s economic health, we want to recognize these individuals and let the greater community know about their fantastic work.”

ABOUT THE SAN JOSE SILICON VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit business association representing nearly 1,400 employers and 250,000 employees throughout the greater Silicon Valley. Its mission is to create a strong local economy, provide premier business connections and visibility, represent the interests of business to government, promote the community and initiate political and community action.

Gavilan College Building a New Campus in South San Jose

Gavilian College was first established in 1919 as a San Benito County Junior College. In 1963, new community college districts were drawn that enabled an expansion into Santa Clara County and in 1966 their main campus was established on Santa Teresa Boulevard in Gilroy. In the late 90s, new facilities were added in Hollister and Morgan Hill to augment the Gilroy campus. Now the college is expanding yet again.

Gavilian College is going to build a brand new campus in Coyote Valley. In fact, it will be the first real development project in this area. The first phase will only consist of a 28,000 SQFT facility that will provide evening courses and a training facility for public safety--both police and fire.

Phase two will be much more ambitious and will include 554,000 SQFT of instructional space and enough room for 10,000 students. The vision for the site plan includes multiple 3-5 story buildings, labs, athletic facilities, a gym, and several parking garages. The first phase will break ground on December 4th. Phase two will take about a decade to be fully realized.

I think we can all agree that additional educational facilities can do nothing but benefit Silicon Valley, especially in South San Jose where there are fewer options for higher education. Gavilian will be a welcome addition to San Jose and a great way to kick off development in Coyote Valley.

The new Gavilian College campus will be located at 560 Bailey Avenue in South San Jose.

Source: Morgan Hill Life

Wednesday Wishlist: UC San Jose

Madison Nguyen--former San Jose District 7 Councilwoman--wrote a great article suggesting that the next UC campus should be in San Jose... and I couldn't agree more.

San Jose has more STEM jobs per capita than any other major city in the US (by far). There are so many in fact, that we rely heavily on importing talent from all around the world to fill them. Even then there are over 50,000 job openings today in Santa Clara County. The demand has never been greater for another world-class University in Silicon Valley to help increase our talent pool for highly skilled workers.

Madison Nguyen mentions new legislation to scout for a future campus that would have a specific focus on "STEAM" education: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math. She states that it is envisioned as a public CalTech at a far more affordable price. Hello, could there be any better location than San Jose for this?

I'll even add one more interesting suggestion that would sweeten the ROI for a UC San Jose, and that would be sharing resources with SJSU. Universities are expensive to build and maintain, so what if certain resources such as the MLK Library and Spartan Stadium could be shared between two world-class educational institutions and have operating costs split between them. Perhaps even some classes could be cross-listed, giving students at both Universities a greater range of educational options and electives. If there is one thing Silicon Valley is great at besides innovation, it's collaboration.

Read Madison Nguyen's opinion piece on UC San Jose over here. 

Coding Dojo Moves to San Jose

Coding Dojo is a computer programming boot camp that turns people into coders in just 3-4 months. They have recently moved their HQ from Mountain View to a larger and more modern space in North San Jose (1982 Zanker Road). Due to high demand, they are also hoping to open a second San Jose location in the next couple months.

In addition to the new digs, Coding Dojo has pledged to increase both female and minority enrollment. They have already gotten their female enrollment up from 10-15% to 25-30% in just the last six months.

The standard 12-week classes have 25-35 student "cohorts" and cost between $10,500 and $12,500. That sounds like a bargain compared to the astronomical salaries you can rack up in the tech world.

Source: SVBJ

Saturday Stats: 2014 End-of-the-Year Meta Post!

Its that time of the year again where we can look back and see all of the accolades San Jose has collected in 2014. This year's list is the longest I have compiled so far. Thank you to everyone that has sent in links for these articles!

This year we have gotten everything from the smartest city, the best big city for jobs, the best city for small business, the city with the highest pay, and even the happiest city to work in. For the first time we even landed on a "coolest city" list.

Check out the impressive meta-list below and for links to the articles head over to this Google doc.

#1	Best City to Flip a House	24/7 Wall Street	2014	SF #2
#1	Smartest City in America	TODAY Show	2014
#9	City with Momentum in the World	Jones Lang LaSalle	2014	SF #1, NY #6
#2	Top Performing Rental Market in the Country	SVBJ	2014	SF #3
#9	Best City for Female Entrepreneurs	Nerdwallet	2014	SF #2
#1	Apartment Boom Town	SpareFoot	2014	SF #8
#5	Best City for Overall Well-Being	USAToday	2014	SF #9
#3	Lowest obesity rate for metros larger than 1 million people	Gallop	2014	SF #3
#11	Top City for Millennials to Live, Work, and Play	Huff Post Collecge	2014	SF #5, NY #1
#1	Best Big City for Jobs	Forbes	2014	SF #2, NY #7
#2	Safest City of Driving	NBC	2014	NY #1, SF did not rank
#1	Best City for Small Business	Biz2Credit	2014	SF #5, NY #7
#6	Healthiest City in the US	ACSM	2014	SF #5, NY #24
#3	Most Upward Mobile City in the US	The Atlantic	2014	SF #5, NY #10
#1	Happiest City to Work In	CareerBliss	2014	SF #3
#1	Best City to Work In	Glassdoor	2014	SF #2, NY did not rank
#1	Best City for STEM Graduates	NerdWallet	2014	SF #5
#16	America's Coolest City 2014	Forbes	2014	SF #5, NY #11
#1	Most Expensive Metro in the US	SocketSite	2014	SF #2
#19	Top City for Culture	PropertyShark	2014	SF #16, NY #13
#7	Top Place in the US to Cool Off Before Summer Ends	SpareFoot	2014
#2	Best Job Market in the US for Recent Grads	The Atlantic	2014	SF #1, NY #28
#7	Most Educated City in the US	WalletHub	2014	SF #14, NY #51
#5	Best City to Trick-or-treat In	Zillow	2014	SF #1
#1	Easiest City for Finding a Job	Forbes	2014	SF and NY did not rank
#1	City with the Top Median Pay	Forbes	2014	SF #2, NY #8

ITU Growing Into North First Street

San Jose's International Technological University (ITU) has been a relatively small graduate school offering a variety of Master's Degrees in Business (MBAs), Software Engineering, Digital Arts, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Engineering. They even have a handful of Doctoral programs for Business Administration, Electrical Engineering, and Interdisciplinary Science. Their enrollment before last year was 700 students. Then in 2013 they became accredited from the Western Association of Schools & Colleges, and their enrollment shot up to 2,000.

At that level of enrollment, they have completely outgrown their Downtown San Jose digs and are upgrading to a 76,500 SQFT building at 2711 North First Street. This will provide them with triple the space as their former headquarters on San Fernando Street.

The move will also allow for a variety of other upgrades:

• A gym and yoga studio
• Health and wellness services
• Collaborative lounge spaces
• Enhancing research programs in embedded systems, robotics, digital arts, and AI

And yet, there is still more. ITU would like to add undergraduate programs in the future targeted towards international students. This may include building a ground-up residential campus in the future to complement their new educational facilities. We could have a new world class university in the making here right in the middle of Silicon Valley.

Source: SVBJ

The History and Craft of the Cocktail

Cache Bouren and Tomoyo Yoshinaga from the famous Singlebarrel "speakeasy" in Downtown San Jose will be touring seven libraries in Silicon Valley to talk about the colorful history behind craft cocktails. The free presentation will also discuss different techniques and styles of mixing and are unique to the craft cocktail movement. While there won't be any alcohol served (darn) you will be able to sample various herbal flavors often used in cocktails. Also on display will be a selection of vintage bar equipment.

To see the full list of presentations, scroll down to the "WHERE and WHEN" section below.

From Santa Clara County Library District:

The craft cocktail movement, with its emphasis on spice, flavors and intelligent mixing, has been an outgrowth of the growing interest in slow food. Providing the opportunity to taste and experience a variety of cocktail concoctions has fashionably become the center of many popular new restaurants and bars.

Lesser known in the craft cocktail trend is the cocktail’s vivid and colorful history of how these drinks came into being or the characteristic ideas and expertise that go into making a distinctive and flavorful beverage.

A free presentation, discussing the history of the cocktail as well as techniques and styles of mixing that are unique to the current craft cocktail movement, will be offered at various SCCLD Libraries from now until January 2015.

Craft bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts, Cache Bouren and Tomoyo Yoshinaga will be touring seven SCCLD libraries.

Bouren, with over twenty years of hospitality and beverage experience, will share his passion for high quality ingredients paired with exceptional service and classic bar techniques.

He was most recently featured as one of the “South Bay’s preeminent tastemakers” in the San Jose Metro June 11, 2014 article, “Craft Cocktails in San Jose.”

WHERE and WHEN:

· Morgan Hill Library, Wednesday, October 15 at 7:00 PM
· Milpitas Library, Tuesday, November 4 at 7:00 PM
· Campbell Library, Monday, November 17 at 7:00 PM
· Gilroy Library, Saturday, November 22 at 1:00 PM
· Cupertino Library, Thursday, December 11 at 7:00 PM
· Saratoga Library, Monday, December 15 at 7:00 PM
· Los Altos Library, Tuesday, January 13 at 7:00 PM

The events are free and open to the public. No reservations required. No Alcohol will be served at the event; however, library books describing many of the recipes highlighted in the demonstration will be available for check out.

Patrons will have the opportunity to sample and identify various herbal flavors often used in cocktails.

Along with the demonstration, vintage bar equipment will be on display.

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the #7 Most Educated City in the US

WalletHub analyzed the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the US to determine where the most educated Americans are choosing to settle. They analyzed 9 metrics including educational attainment, the percentage of workers with STEM jobs (science, technology, engineering, and math), doctors per capita, public school rankings, and the average quality and size of universities.

San Jose came in a very respectable 7th place. Outside of college towns, only Seattle outranked San Jose. SF was far behind in 14th and New York was all the way down in 51st place. San Jose also came in 1st place nationally when it came to the percentage of workers in STEM jobs. See the top 25 below or head over to the source link to see the full list.

Sources: SVBJ, WalletHub