BlueSky Tennessee Institute prepares students for IT careers amid growing demand for tech professionals

A student working on a coding project. (Photo by East Tennessee State University)

Noting a critical shortage of IT and cybersecurity professionals, the insurance provider BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee teamed up with East Tennessee State University in 2021 to create an accelerated learning program for students to earn a bachelor’s degree in computing and job offer at BlueCross in just two years.

According to Bradley Leon, executive director of the initiative known as the BlueSky Tennessee Institute, about 30 students from the institute’s first cohort are set to graduate in December. He said one of the main goals of the program is to allow students like them to quickly gain credentials and experience in IT, in order to help fill IT and cybersecurity job vacancies.

The program offers yearlong internships with the company and guarantees graduates job offers where students can average a base salary of $65,000.

“We employ a lot of people on our IT team, but at any given point in the year, we can have up to 100 vacancies. It's really a national issue. Right now, there are about 750,000 open cybersecurity jobs in the United States, and the other challenge we were facing was that we would hire recent college graduates and they wouldn't be quite prepared. It was not just a supply issue, it was a readiness issue also, because [many higher ed programs] weren’t really meeting the needs of graduates as they were coming into our organization,” he told Tennessee Firefly.

“We were also facing a community challenge, where local high school graduates from some high priority schools, mostly along socioeconomic lines, were not graduating from college.”

Leon said the program is led by ETSU professors but based at their headquarters in Chattanooga, where students are familiarized with the company and how to work as part of an IT team. He added that students rotate through “different parts of the enterprise information technology division” during their yearlong internship experience. Those areas include development (coding), infrastructure and operations, cybersecurity, and project management.

“It’s all located at our corporate headquarters here in Chattanooga. They're getting their degree from ETSU, but they're at the BlueCross corporate headquarters because we want them to better understand the people and the work. When they're done, we want them to be fully prepared to walk into our organization,” he said, adding that students can choose to work elsewhere instead after graduating as well.

“While they're here taking courses, they also take a full year of paid internships with our IT team. I think what’s most exciting for me as a career educator is seeing that they are graduating in basically two years with a full year of work experience, and we're guaranteeing them a job on our IT team if they graduate on time. Almost all of the students from our first cohort are going to be doing that - graduating on time.”

Leon said that while ETSU’s programming in IT related disciplines was already internationally recognized, the BlueSky program gives students a unique opportunity to apply their learning in a real-world job setting.

“We wanted to make sure that once we've hired them, they're not taking another 18 months to get ready, and I think the students have found that it's been invaluable,” he said of the program’s courses and internship opportunities.

Sandra Mejia, a student in the first cohort, said the program has taught her a lot about enterprise information technology and project management.

“I’m really enjoying the work, getting to know the people and gaining insight into how BlueCross gets things done for members and customers,” she said.

Leon said that in addition to learning technical skills, students who make their way through the program also gain leadership and teamwork skills.

He noted that the response to the program from students like Mejia so far has been positive, adding that the program may expand to serve more students in the years ahead.

“We don't want them just to be entry level IT employees. We want them to be future leaders in the company. We not only select for that, but we also make sure that throughout the program, they get reinforcement on those leadership principles,” he said.