Fall Programming for Adults for 2025!
Saturdays in the D returns this fall with a new lineup of free enrichment courses and workshops for residents of Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park.
Saturdays in the D is a free, community-focused program developed by the City of Detroit in partnership with the University of Michigan Center for Innovation in Detroit and supported by Ally Financial. It offers a range of educational and professional development opportunities for Detroit residents, including enrichment activities for youth and workforce-focused workshops and certificate programs for adults, emphasizing skill-building, career advancement, and college readiness.
ADULT PROGRAM
Participants will have access to courses in networking and leadership, business strategy, and advanced Python programming. Classes are led by expert instructors and combine in-person instruction with online learning through Michigan Online and Coursera.
All programs are free of charge, and successful completion of select courses will earn a non-credit certificate from the City of Detroit and the University of Michigan. Learners must commit to attending the in-person sessions in order to be eligible for certification. Wrap-around support services are available to all participants, including career coaching, peer mentorship, and free laptop loans for those who need them.
Visit the Saturdays in the D website.
Adult Certificate Courses
How to Network: Leading Yourself to Lead Others
October 4 – November 8, 2025
1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., 6-week course
Location: U-M Detroit Center, 3663 Woodward Ave #150, Detroit
Instructor: Klementina X. Sula, University of Michigan Lecturer
Course Facilitator: Kush Dawar
Description: Life is a relationship business, and the world is our work. Success in today’s complex, dynamic, and unpredictable world depends on our ability to cultivate, nurture, and activate relationships. This course – designed for students, professionals, and executives – will inspire learners to build a networking mindset and harness the power of networking to solve problems, create opportunities, and live out their respective purposes and goals.
A networking mindset is a strategic advantage in life and business. In this course, you will learn what networking really is and how to cultivate a networking mindset. You will also have the opportunity to clarify your purpose, analyze your personal brand, and learn the structure and method to building, nurturing, and activating relationships, so you can network with confidence to achieve your goals – and do so faster. You will also create your own action plan to live out your purpose, both personally and professionally.
This course serves all: from students and recent college graduates who face challenges in translating their degrees and experiences to a job, to professionals who feel stuck and unfulfilled with their lives, to senior leaders and executives who have realized that a networking mindset is necessary to drive greater organizational success and need help figuring out how to go about it.
Register here.
How to Create a Good Business
October 4 – November 8, 2025
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., 6 week course
Location: U-M Detroit Center, 3663 Woodward Ave #150, Detroit, MI 48201
Instructor: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Stephen M. Ross School of Business Professor
Course Facilitator: Shellie Jones
Description: Prioritizing the wellbeing of workers is not just a good – or ethical – thing to do, but because it makes business sense. A happier, healthier workforce is a more productive workforce. A productive workforce is more likely to attend, perform their best work, and add more value to an organization.
Unfortunately, investing in the well-being of workers isn’t so simple.
In this course, you’ll unpack what “worker wellbeing” means across different contexts, explore how to use research techniques to find the sweet spot between worker interests and firm interests, and understand how to design scalable solutions to enable both parties to thrive.
University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business Professor Achyuta Adhvaryu, Ph.D., co-founder of research nonprofit, Good Business Lab, will guide you through the course, and share how research-based interventions can affect worker and business outcomes. Leaders from academia, research, business, and workers themselves, share their perspectives coupled with academic research to help you design a worker wellbeing intervention of your own.
Whether you’re a student interested in social business, an executive exploring ways to support your teams, or just passionate about this space, there is something in this course for you.
Register here.
PYTHON PROGRAMMING
Python II: Python Data Structures
October 4 – November 8, 2025
1:30 – 3 p.m, 6-week course
Location: U-M Detroit Center, 3663 Woodward Ave #150, Detroit, MI 48201
Instructor: Dr. Chuck Severance, Clinical Professor, School of Information
Course Facilitator: Tamara Qawasmeh
This course will introduce the core data structures of the Python programming language. We will move past the basics of procedural programming and explore how we can use the Python built-in data structures such as lists, dictionaries, and tuples to perform increasingly complex data analysis. This course will cover Chapters 6-10 of the textbook “Python for Everybody”. This course covers Python 3.
*Prerequisite: Take this course only if you have completed at least Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) or have gained equivalent programming knowledge.
Register here.
Python IV: Using Databases with Python
October 4 – November 8, 2025
11:30 a.m – 1 p.m., 6-week course
Location: U-M Detroit Center, 3663 Woodward Ave #150, Detroit, MI 48201
Instructor: Dr. Chuck Severance, Clinical Professor, School of Information
Course Facilitator: Tamara Qawasmeh
This course will introduce students to the basics of the Structured Query Language (SQL) as well as basic database design for storing data as part of a multi-step data gathering, analysis, and processing effort. The course will use SQLite3 as its database. We will also build web crawlers and multi-step data gathering and visualization processes. We will use the D3.js library to do basic data visualization. This course will cover Chapters 14-15 of the book “Python for Everybody”. To succeed in this course, you should be familiar with the material covered in Chapters 1-13 of the textbook and the first three courses in this specialization. This course covers Python 3.
*Prerequisite: Take this course only if you have completed at least Using Python to Access Web Data or have gained equivalent programming knowledge.
Register here.
Python V: Capstone: Retrieving, Processing, and Visualizing Data with Python
October 4 – November 8, 2025
9:30 a.m. – 11 a.m., 6-week course
Location: Newlab at Michigan Central, 2050 15th St, Detroit
Instructor: Dr. Chuck Severance, Clinical Professor, School of Information
Course Facilitator: Tamara Qawasmeh
Description: In the capstone, students will build a series of applications to retrieve, process and visualize data using Python. The projects will involve all the elements of the specialization. In the first part of the capstone, students will do some visualizations to become familiar with the technologies in use and then will pursue their own project to visualize some other data that they have or can find. Chapters 15 and 16 from the book “Python for Everybody” will serve as the backbone for the capstone. This course covers Python 3.
*Prerequisite: Take this course only if you have completed at least Using Databases with Python or have gained equivalent programming knowledge.
Register here.
Questions?
Visit the Saturdays in the D website.
