The first cohort of students enrolled in Onondaga Community College’s Micron-related programs are among 660 crossing the stage Saturday at commencement ceremonies. Kah-lelle Akins is one of them, and is heading to Micron headquarters in Idaho later this month. In some ways, he said it’s hard to believe he has a job lined up less than two weeks after graduation."
"There's still times where I'm like, 'hey, it's happening. I'm leaving, 2,800 miles [away],'" Akins said. "They've [Micron's] been great through the whole process. It's still very surreal.”
It’s not completely serendipitous. Akins had an internship at Micron last summer and the semiconductor company offered him a job even before he left. But the 23-year-old Central Square alumnus says his path to OCC was indirect. He earned numerous credits at SUNY Buffalo but didn’t graduate. After some regrouping and encouragement from family, he gave the electromechanical technology program a try. It was a natural fit.
“I was doing psych [psychology] and poli sci [political science], it got deep…reasoning and stuff like that," Akins said. "So that's, if you think about it, finding the root of a problem. Engineering is the side of 'OK, what's the root of this problem? How can you make it better.'”
OCC Assistant Professor Michael Grieb said students get hands-on foundational training during the two-year program .
“How to work with tools, how to safely work with electricity, how to analyze data and look at numbers and use that information to make decisions and most importantly critical thinking, troubleshooting and problem solving.”
Grieb helped launch the coursework in the fall of 2023.
“We're seeing increased enrollment, we're seeing additional programs feeding into us," Grieb said. "So this opportunity is really aligning well with what students want and what the community wants and industry wants.”
Grieb arrived at OCC seven years ago after working as an engineer at companies across region. He said he developed a curriculum based on demand for specific training.
"All the employers that I worked for are desperate for this type of skills," Grieb said. "There's nowhere else to get it. I was trying to find a way to work within our existing course work to do that, but this evolved into this electromechanical program, and has now become a focal point for industry in Central New York."
The first of Micron’s chip fabs in Clay is still years away. But Kah-lelle Akins hopes to return from Idaho.
“I'm going to know our cohorts there, our peers, but it's not going to be what I have here. It's so many connections," Akins said. "Hopefully I have different skills to be able to come back and like really, really help us get this into the community and help it bring us up. I can't wait.”
He’s one of a dozen graduating this spring. Twenty more are expected to complete their degrees in December.
