If anybody wants a good job in technology these days, they’re going to have to get familiar with data analytics. Heck, a lot of jobs outside of tech are starting to demand some data literacy. Savvy schools are helping students pregame for the job hunt with courses that teach hands-on data analytics.

The University of Connecticut is steeling its students for a tough job market with of-the-moment analytics software company Splunk Inc. The school actually incorporated Splunk into classes on Industrial Internet of Things, or IIoT, and other subjects at the behest of recruiters. The older software it had been using wasn’t high on the list of things recruiters were interested in, said Ryan O’Connor (pictured, left), senior advisory engineer at Splunk.

“We were hearing Splunk over and over again, so why not just bring it into the classroom?” O’Conner said. Happily, Splunk does more than look good on a resume. It is helping UConn students across diverse majors learn real-world data-analytics techniques.

O’Connor and Jon Moore (pictured, right), MIS program director at UConn, spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Splunk .conf18 event in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. They discussed Splunk’s partnership with UConn and how the school is leveraging Splunk’s software across courses. (* Disclosure below.)

Splunk on the farm and in the job field

UConn partners with Splunk though its Splunk4Good program, which grants a Splunk Pledge license. Students delve into the nuts and bolts of Splunk’s somewhat complex technology, and train for free in Splunk Fundamentals 1 and 2.

Students are using Splunk mobile capabilities for IIoT analytics at a farm facility five miles off campus. They can put an iPhone up to a sensor or scan a QR code and see live real-time data on what those sensors are doing.

UConn aligned its adoption of Splunk with the launch of its analytics minor, which is open to students in any major. “Now we’re getting students from outside the school of business,” Moore said. “We have engineers, business, psychology students, history students; they’re all looking to understand data and platforms to be able to make decisions.”

“We’ve had students already go out into the field … and come back and tell us, ‘We went out to a job, and we mentioned that we knew Splunk, and we were a shoe-in for certain things,'” O’Connor said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Splunk .conf18 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Splunk .conf18. Neither Splunk Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE