Even as the economy struggles to recover and the latest jobs report paints a dreary employment forecast, recent local college graduates appear to have found a promising path. Schenectady County Community College graduate Derek Palmeri is already seeing a stable future, crediting his Associate of Applied Science degree in Nanoscale Materials Technology. “It is the perfect program to be in right now,” Palmeri said. “It has definitely proved very promising in the job search. I was hired with a full-time job before even graduating. Not many people can say that, especially nowadays.” Palmeri, a 22-year-old Guilderland resident, was hired at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany after interning there his final semester before graduating last month. Palmeri said he wasn’t expecting it to be as smooth of a transition from college into the workforce. He said he even had a backup job because he was planning on working for a year while he applied for a job in his field. “I definitely felt very honored,” he said. “I hadn’t had a lot of offers like that. … It was like the last thing I was expecting.” He said he thanks his professor and advisor Tania Cabrera because she recommended him and two other students for the internship at CNSE. Fellow SCCC nanoscale graduate Ed Springli also faired well and was hired by GlobalFoundries before graduating. “I was ecstatic,” Springli said. “The reason I had gotten into the field was because I heard GlobalFoundries was going to be opening up a plant in Malta that would hire 1,600 employees.” Springli, a 24-year-old Clifton Park resident, said when he found out in March he was hired by GlobalFoundries it was the “best feeling he had had probably in his life so far.” Before coming to SCCC, Springli said he attended college for four years, but took some time off. Previously he was a computer science major, but it wasn’t the right fit for him. “I found that I didn’t like the programming aspect of computers, and I really liked the hardware aspect more,” Springli said. “It is not putting code into a computer, you are actually building something. You are not sitting there at a computer typing lines and lines and lines of code.” He said the “general rule” for programming is for every 1,000 lines of code there will be five lines that are good. “You can see how that would be tedious and boring,” he said.
He also said he’s faired better than fellow family members upon graduating.
He said he has a younger brother that graduated last year from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and he didn’t have a job out of college. He also has a cousin who graduated last year with a bachelor’s degree in construction management but didn’t have a job lined up. “I am the first one of my generation in my family to have a job before they finished college,” he said, “so it feels great, and it definitely validates the choice I made in choosing this program.” SCCC adjunct professor Simon Miner, who taught Palmeri, said he sees the nanoscale industry heading in “a good direction” for students. Miner said having graduates being able to enter the workforce one step ahead is “attractive” for companies, leading to the spur of hiring. “It started off as just a catchphrase, but is becoming that Tech Valley is a real thing,” Miner said. “Companies are coming to this area, and there are not enough people trained in their technologies for their workforce.” Miner, a 32-year-old Schenectady resident, was also the first graduate of SCCC’s nanoscale program in May 2009. “I really understood like a lot of my students that this was where a lot of the jobs were going to be popping up,” he said. “It is a growing field that has great opportunities for employment out of that two-year degree.” Miner works for Schenectady-based SuperPower Inc. as a shift process technician. He said nanoscale technology helped develop what SuperPower produces, which is second-generation high-temperature superconducting (2G HTS) technology. The wire product would be used in smart grid technologies. Miner said he sees students being engaged and interested in nanoscale coursework at SCCC. Also, the job prospects don’t hurt interest, with around 80 percent of students having jobs lined up before graduation in the current graduating class, according to Miner. “It is exciting stuff. It is a technology that is gaining more and more press,” he said. “Students really seem to enjoy learning about these high-tech systems, and they are also very excited that there is a very good chance they will have job lined up before they graduate.” Miner said he would urge any student interested in math, science or technology to take “a hard look” at SCCC’s nanoscale program. “There is no better feeling than knowing you are going to be working on cutting edge technology that can basically change our world,” he said. Palmeri admits nanoscale job opportunities might not be for everyone
Working for hours at a time in a clean room in a “bunny suit” and protective gear can get rather hot, he said. “It is very physically and mentally demanding, but it is definitely worth it if you can hack it,” he said. Palmeri said it is really important to him to understand the materials on the earth around him. Also, knowing how the next hot gadget is made interests him. “A lot of people who use their computers and smartphones have no idea how it is made,” he said.