Case Study: San Jose State University achieves hands-on big data training and improved student marketability with Cloudera

San Jose State University Creates ‘Data Wranglers’ in Partnership with Cloudera

San José State University (SJSU), aiming to “power Silicon Valley,” tasked adjunct professor Peter Zadrozny with turning students into practical “data wranglers” who can tackle real-world big data problems. The challenge was to move beyond theory—teaching skills employers demand for analyzing both the human digital footprint and machine-generated data—by giving students hands‑on experience with industry tools and workflows.

SJSU partnered with Cloudera (plus Splunk and GoGrid) to base its Big Data Analytics course on Hadoop and Hive, use Cloudera Manager for fast cluster setup, and provide courseware, licenses, and certification discounts through the Cloudera Academic Partnership. The result is a highly popular, project-driven class where students work with live datasets, gain marketable Hadoop/Hive skills, and report stronger job prospects and faster hands‑on learning.

San Jose State University

Peter Zadrozny

Professor