Microcredentials

Ready to turn your leadership potential into real-world impact? The Leadership in Action microcredential is designed to bridge the gap between leadership theory and hands-on practice.
In this program, you will:

• Discover Your Strengths: Review pre-course materials, and participate in a 90 minute course designed to bring leadership concepts together while describing in further detail the remainder of the microcredential requirements.
• Lead a Real-World Project: Partner with a Student Affairs advisor to design and execute a project you're passionate about on campus.
• Market Your Skills: Learn how to articulate high-demand career readiness skills, like critical thinking, team collaboration, and effective communication, to future employers and graduate school admissions officers.

Offered by the Division of Student Affairs, this program will help you develop the leadership skills needed to stand out from the crowd and earn an official digital badge to showcase on your LinkedIn profile and resume!

Prerequisites: None! Open to all Union College students.

Format: Course and pre-course review: approximately 4 hours; self-paced project and presentation: hours will vary.

Sign up form

Program Contacts: Emily Rocha, director of Student Activities; Aileen Schatz, director of the First-Year Experience

Step into the shop and build core manufacturing skills with the Maker Web Analog Machining Microcredential! This hands-on microcredential introduces you to fundamental metalworking and precision machining using manual mills, lathes and essential machine tools.

What You’ll Learn & Build:

• Precision Machine Operation: Learn hands-on operational skills and shop safety for manual milling machines and lathes.
• Tooling & Tolerancing: Learn workholding setup, tool selection, material preparation, and precision measurement to achieve exact technical tolerances.
• Hands-On Fabrication Portfolio: Build five distinct physical artifacts, culminating in a custom final two-part mechanical assembly that combines both milling and lathe operations.
  

Why Earn This Microcredential?
Hands-on machining fluency is highly valued across engineering, architecture, product development, aerospace, healthcare device design, research, and rapid prototyping. Earning this microcredential proves your practical technical competency, attention to detail, and ability to safely turn raw stock into high-precision custom parts on industry standard machining equipment.

Prerequisites: None! Open to all Union College students.

Format: In-person and self-paced (15-20 hours)

Sign up form

Program Contacts: Cole Belmont, Makerspace Director

Learn the art of rapid prototyping with the Maker Web 3D Printing Microcredential! Designed for creators of all backgrounds, this hands-on microcredential introduces you to additive manufacturing, turning digital 3D models into functional physical components using our 3D printers and Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology.

What You’ll Learn & Build:

• 3D Design & Slicing Software: Gain proficiency in Rhino3D and/or Solidworks for digital modeling and FlashPrint for slicer file preparation, material optimization, and print setup.
• Machine Operation & Troubleshooting: Learn hands-on 3D printer hardware setup including, material loading, safety standards, and print troubleshooting.
• Hands-On Fabrication Portfolio: Build five distinct physical and digital artifacts, including precision assemblies and a custom final three-part mechanical project.
  

Why Earn This Microcredential?
Rapid prototyping and 3D printing skills are highly sought after across engineering, product design, architecture, healthcare, aerospace and art. Earning this microcredential demonstrates to employers and graduate admissions that you can independently navigate the entire 3D printing. digital-to-physical design and fabrication pipeline.

Prerequisites: None! Open to all Union College students.

Format: In-person and self-paced (15-20 hours)

Sign up form

Program Contacts: Cole Belmont, Makerspace Director

Bring your ideas to life with the Maker Web CNC and Laser Cutting Microcredential! This hands-on microcredential introduces you to fundamental digital subtractive manufacturing, giving you direct access to precision 2D and 3D carving and cutting fabrication tools in the Maker Web.

What You’ll Learn & Build:

• CAD & CAM Software: Master vector drafting and 3D modeling in Rhino3D and/or Solidworks, and learn to generate machine tool paths using Retina Engrave and VCarve Pro.
• Digital Fabrication Tools: Gain hands-on operational mastery of laser cutters and CNC routers to transform raw materials into custom components.
• Hands-On Fabrication Portfolio: Build five distinct physical artifacts—culminating in a custom final three-part mechanical assembly that combines both CNC and laser cutting operations.
  

Why Earn This Microcredential?
Digital fabrication skills are essential across engineering, studio art, architecture, product design, and rapid prototyping. Earning this credential verifies your ability to turn complex digital designs into tangible, high-precision projects safely and independently.

Prerequisites: None! Open to all Union College students.

Format: In-person and self-paced (15-20 hours)

Sign up form

Program Contacts: Cole Belmont, Makerspace Director

Build professional Excel modeling skills and learn to read public company financial statements. Every business, nonprofit and government organization speaks the language of finance. Whether you want to manage budgets, analyze company performance or launch your own venture, knowing how to work with financial statements in Excel is one of the most versatile skills you can build.

Financial Statements is an applied, hands-on microcredential that takes students from no prior experience to building a linked three-statement financial model in Microsoft Excel. You will learn to navigate SEC Form 10-K annual reports, import and organize real company data, and analyze a public company's growth, margins, working capital and cash flow.

What You Will Learn:

• Professional Excel Modeling Standards: Build speed and accuracy with formatting conventions (inputs, formulas and links color-coded), cell locking and careful error handling.
• Financial Data Lookups: Pull and total figures from raw SEC data files with XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH and SUMIFS.
• Reading the SEC 10-K: Find management's explanation of results in Item 7 (MD&A) and the audited financial statements in Item 8.
• The Three Financial Statements: Build the Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement, link them, and prove the model with automated balance and rollforward checks.
• Financial Ratio Analysis: Measure growth, margins, working capital and cash conversion, then summarize a company's financial health in a short written brief.

Prerequisites: None! Open to all Union College students. Requires Microsoft Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365.

Format: Asynchronous online (14-16 hours)

Sign up form

Program contact: Debra Gelinas, Curriculum and Program Development Specialist for Pre-Professional Programs

Learn how investors and companies use market multiples to value businesses. How do equity analysts, private equity firms and corporate strategy teams figure out what a company is worth? One of the most common methods is relative valuation: comparing a company's financial performance and market value with similar companies, much as real estate agents price homes using neighborhood "comps."

Public Valuation: Comparable Companies Approach gives students practical skills in market-based valuation. Using a real public company and five industry peers, you will learn how capital structure links equity value to enterprise value, how to build and defend a peer group, how to calculate and adjust valuation multiples, and how to turn market data into a defended price range and recommendation.

What You Will Learn:

• Equity Value and Enterprise Value: Bridge from market capitalization to enterprise value: add debt (including finance leases) and noncontrolling interest, subtract cash and investments.
• Building a Peer Group: Compare business model, size, margins and growth to decide which peers belong, and explain why.
• Normalizing Earnings: Remove one-time gains and losses, after tax, so multiples compare like with like.
• Valuation Multiples in Excel: Calculate EV/Revenue, EV/EBITDA and P/E, and summarize the peer group with MEDIAN and QUARTILE in a benchmarking table.
• Implied Value and Valuation Summary Chart (know in banking as a "football field"): Apply peer multiples to the target company, chart the implied share price ranges, and write a short valuation memo recommending whether the stock looks overvalued or undervalued.

Prerequisites: This program is open to students from all majors who have completed the Financial Statements microcredential. Requires Microsoft Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365.

Format: Asynchronous online (12-14 hours)

Sign up form

Program contact: Debra Gelinas, Curriculum and Program Development Specialist for Pre-Professional Programs

Learn the core valuation method used in investment banking, equity research and corporate finance. While relative valuation asks what the market pays for similar companies, intrinsic valuation asks a more fundamental question: based on the cash a company will generate in the future, what is the business worth today? The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model is the standard framework for answering it.
Public Valuation: Discounted Cash Flow Approach is the final microcredential in the series. You will build a complete five-year DCF model in Excel for a real public company: forecast its cash flows, estimate its cost of capital, calculate a terminal value, and test how sensitive the answer is to your assumptions. You will then compare your DCF value with your comparable companies results and the market price.

What You Will Learn:

• Free Cash Flow Forecasting: Calculate Unlevered Free Cash Flow (UFCF) from operating profit, taxes, depreciation, capital expenditure and working capital.
• Cost of Capital and Discounting: Apply time value of money, estimate cost of equity with CAPM, and combine it with after-tax cost of debt into the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) used to discount each year's cash flow.
• Terminal Value: Value the years beyond the forecast with the Perpetuity Growth Method, and cross-check it against the exit multiple it implies.
• Sensitivity Analysis and Valuation Summary Chart (know in banking as a "football field"): Build a two-way sensitivity table (WACC vs terminal growth rate) and chart your DCF range beside your comps results and the market price.

Prerequisites: This program is open to students from all majors who have completed the Financial Statements microcredential. Requires Microsoft Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365.

Format: Asynchronous online (12-14 hours)

Sign up form

Program contact: Debra Gelinas, Curriculum and Program Development Specialist for Pre-Professional Programs

Stand out to employers with in-demand skills in AI governance, ethics, and safety. Artificial Intelligence is changing every industry, from tech and healthcare to finance and engineering. As companies rapidly adopt AI tools, they are actively looking for candidates who understand how to evaluate and use them responsibly.

AI Ethics in Practice: Skills for Responsible AI is a hands-on, microcredential program designed to give undergraduate students a competitive edge in today’s job market. You will move beyond basic theory to gain practical, real-world skills in recognizing potential AI risks, understanding key AI frameworks, and making informed, ethical decisions for AI use in the workplace.

No matter what industry you decide to go into, completing this program demonstrates to recruiters that you can identify potential bias, recognize data privacy considerations, and evaluate AI challenges before they turn into costly mistakes.

What You Will Learn:

• In-Demand Skills for the Job Market: Explore core pillars like transparency, fairness, privacy, and accountability that top companies look for when hiring.
• Real-World AI Case Studies: Examine real software projects, from standard machine learning to Large Language Models (LLMs) and autonomous AI agents, to identify where privacy, bias, and security risks commonly arise.
• Understanding AI Regulations: Learn the basics of major regulatory guidelines (like the NIST AI RMF and EU AI Act) so you can speak knowledgeably about compliance concepts in job interviews.
• Practical Problem Solving: Learn how to balance technical efficiency with ethical considerations, propose feasible improvements, and document risk assessments for team leaders and stakeholders.

Prerequisites: None! Open to all Union College students. Requires Microsoft Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365.

Format: Asynchronous online (15-20 hours)

Sign up form

Program contact: Debra Gelinas, Curriculum and Program Development Specialist for Pre-Professional Programs