Hundreds of Central New York high school students got a chance to learn what technical careers might be awaiting them in their future. Micron Day at Syracuse University featured several dozen companies, programs and educational opportunities to introduce them to possible fields of study. The event presented a lot more options than just the jobs promised from the microchip giant.
Micron Workforce Strategies Manager Mike Guttman offered students a hand-on demonstration of tasks similar to those that thousands might be doing in the Micron Chip Fab, once it’s built nearby. However, he noted that they’re just trying to gauge initial interest in technology and aptitude for future jobs, “putting together things, disassembling things. Really just want to … see if this triggers a little bit of interest, and then hopefully they'll decide that this path is for them.”
Guttman, who worked up the ladder in Micron from technician to engineer, used his own background as an example, “when I was in high school, I didn't know what I wanted to do, right? But I always had that tinkering ability. I always liked to take stuff apart. … I was taking apart my Nintendo and PlayStations and toasters and my parents would get upset with me.”
He pointed out many jobs at the coming Micron plant will not require advanced degrees. Certificate programs at Onondaga Community College or a variety of 2- and 4-year college degrees could suffice.
The larger purpose of Micron Day at SU was simply to spur interest in all sorts of STEM subjects. Engineering and Computer Science Professor Zhenyu Gan had a variety of robots for the students to check out. He works with high school students each summer competing in robot design.
“Many of the things they learned from us is, you know, they do not have to keep working with the same (robotics) platform because … the knowledge that they learn can be transferred to a wide spread of applications," Gan said. “So, the way they do the coding, the way they do the assembling, the manufacturing process, they can immediately use all this knowledge for some other stuff.”
Students also got their hands on drones, virtual reality products, and learned about various training and educational opportunities to gain skills for those fields. The consensus was many types of technology and engineering skills will help prepare students for a range of jobs that will be growing in the future – not just in the Micron plant.
