UTSA helps students gain career-ready skills with Adobe microcredentials

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is a longstanding Adobe Creative Campus partner that continually finds innovative approaches to drive student outcomes. One of the ways they are helping students stand out in the job market is by encouraging them to earn Adobe microcredentials, which indicate they have mastered an in-demand skill like designing compelling presentations or using generative AI to develop business pitches.

Unlike typical Adobe certification courses, which demonstrate expertise in an Adobe app after weeks of study and hands-on experience, microcredentials focus on specific creative tasks, such as editing a short video, designing a presentation, or creating an image with generative AI. They take just a few hours to complete and are entirely self-paced, making it easy for even the busiest students to fit lessons into a busy schedule.

“Microcredentials empower students to explore a variety of career paths, deepen their learning beyond their major, and gain valuable skills that enrich their college experience and future opportunities,” said Claudia Arcolin, executive director of teaching and learning experiences at UTSA.

Through Adobe microcredentials UTSA students can learn a dozen essential digital and creative skills, such as creating eye-catching marketing through social media. Each course culminates with a practical assignment, promoting experiential learning. Upon completion, students earn a digital certificate and badge they can include on their resume and LinkedIn profile as a record of their skills.

UTSA encourages the use of microcredentials among faculty and students both inside and outside of the classroom. The program has already awarded over 250 credentials to UTSA students, with interest growing every day.

Educating from the top of the mountain

Willie Schaefer, an Adobe specialist at UTSA, had to be innovative in his approach to driving awareness of these new microcredentials among the 40,000 UTSA faculty and students. He focused first on gaining support from the most senior and influential faculty. He asked department chairs to champion microcredentialing in meetings and encouraged faculty influencers to talk about the benefits. He’s now developing summer training and asynchronous courses to help faculty learn more about Adobe’s creative tools and generative AI capabilities and the value of earning microcredentials.

“Because the Adobe Creative Skills courses take just a few hours to complete, it’s easy for faculty to incorporate them into lesson plans and give students the skills they need to level up their classroom work,” Schaefer said.

Integrating across the curriculum

In addition to spreading the word among key faculty, Schaefer actively promotes microcredentials in classes that reach students across majors and departments, such as the Academic Introduction & Strategies (AIS) courses required for all first-year students or Honors classes aimed at members of the Honor College, an optional invitation-only program open to the most highly-motivated and successful students from any field of study.

During the Professional Development module in the Honors 101 class, students complete either “Job Application Essentials or Product Pitch with Generative AI”, learning skills that will help them start their careers. Meanwhile, in the Skill Development module, students learn to improve communication with a microcredential in “Presentation Design or Storytelling Through Short-Form Video”.

“In Honors, we have utilized Adobe software to help students to demonstrate digital literacy through highlighting their learned skills and creative works”, said Alegra Lozano, director of counseling and assistant professor of practice at the Honors College at UTSA. “Microcredentials are a perfect way to help students learn specific skills that align with their professional goals, and teaches them how to speak about those skills in meaningful ways.”

Championing microcredentials among peers

A key way to get faculty support is by having peers share their successes. In a roundtable series, faculty explained how they incorporated microcredentials into their courses.

For example, communications professor Ryan McPherson introduces microcredentials in his public relations, podcasting, and personal branding courses, setting students up for success in each introduction module. Students have the opportunity to earn additional microcredentials that align with course outcomes in each following module. Meanwhile, physics and astronomy professor Dr. Chris Packham asks students to create visualizations of space concepts using generative AI after earning an “Intro to Generative AI” badge.

In addition, Cindy Roberts, assistant professor of practice for mathematics, champions Adobe software and microcredentials to help students understand how mathematical concepts appear in the real world. As part of Calculus for Biosciences, a class aimed at students interested in fields such as medicine and biology, Roberts teaches students to create a mini-website by linking Adobe Express pages that illustrate potential uses of calculus in their chosen field. Students complete the “Presentation Design” microcredential before diving into their projects, giving them the requisite skills to clearly convey mathematical concepts in a compelling way, allowing Roberts to focus on other topics.

Biology student Alessia Valdes added Adobe Stock images, graphs, and bitmojis to describe using differential equations to calculate the rate of administering antibiotics for a theoretical patient. Music education student James Gonzales used animal-themed images alongside equations that describe an imaginary veterinary hospital’s growth over time.

“Technology changes fast, and no one knows what students will be expected to do in their careers,” Roberts said. “Microcredentials give students the confidence that they can continue to learn new skills and contribute to their workplaces in the future.”

Highlighting benefits to students

Beyond the classroom, groups like Adobe Student Ambassadors help their peers understand how these self-paced courses can fit into their lives and build career-ready skills.

Freshman Noah Schwencke, an Adobe student ambassador and a digital communications major with a minor in marketing, earned a “Social Media Content Creation” microcredential and plans to add more. He gained valuable experience working on specific projects using different Adobe Creative Cloud apps.

Silvina Padilla, a junior in film and media, earned microcredentials for “Intro to Generative AI and Social Media Sports Marketing” during her time as an Adobe student ambassador. “It’s great that I can show the microcredential on my resume or LinkedIn page. I call it a badge of honor; proof that I’ve put the hard work in to master a new skill,” Padilla said.

UTSA is currently looking into the impact of microcredentials through both qualitative and quantitative research. While microcredentials set students’ resumes apart, UTSA wants to go further and determine how badges influence interviews, post-graduate careers, and self-confidence.

“We want students to build skills however they can,” Shaefer explained. “That might mean in the classroom, through training seminars and YouTube tutorials, or now through microcredentials. The important thing is that we prepare students for the future by encouraging digital fluency and giving them the skills they need to succeed.”

Learn more about the Adobe Creative Skills courses and get inspired by opportunities to unlock transformative career opportunities with microcredentials courses here.