Showing Students Career Options

When Nathan Moorehead was a student at Jordan-Elbridge High School, he took two years of Electrical Technology classes at the Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES. "It was more for residential, but I liked it and thought I would go a little bit further and get closer to the engineering side."

That brought Moorehead to Onondaga Community College where he will complete his Electrical Technology degree at the end of this semester. On March 28 he attended the Career & Applied Technology Career Fair which attracted approximately two dozen employers to the Whitney Applied Technology Center Atrium. "It was really helpful to have everyone here, find out what kind of work they have to offer, and what to expect working for them."

Moorehead's experience was exactly what event organizers were hoping for. "We wanted students to be able to explore and figure out what their career holds for them," said Professor Gino Duca. "This provided them a very safe environment where they wouldn't feel the pressure of being at a job fair. It also gave the employers an opportunity to come back to campus, see what we're doing, the quality students we're producing, and help them feel connected to campus."

OCC student Brandan Carroll also spoke with employers at the Career Fair. He's in the Mathematics & Science degree program and plans to switch to Architectural Technology next semester. One of the employers he spoke with was Dwyer Architectural. "I wanted to know more about potential career paths or jobs. They were giving me ideas about what types of software and programs I would need to know and they would teach me here to give me a leg up."

All three employees representing Dwyer Architectural are graduates of OCC. "This event is pretty valuable," said Matt Leak '88. "We're always looking. My two colleagues here (Veronica Van Tassel and Jameson Talucci) were working at Dwyer while they were OCC students and they just kept them on. And we have four more alums in our Syracuse office."

Employers who were invited to participate in the Career & Applied Technology Career Fair included:

• AnCor
• Candy cars
• Constellation
• Dwyer Architectural
• JMA Wireless
• John's Auto Care
• King & King Architects
• Maguire Family of Cars
• Marquardt Switches
• Novelis
• NUCOR Steel
• PPC Broadband
• ProArch
• Schneider Packaging
• Tessy Plastics
• TTM
• Usherwood

The Career & Applied Technology Career Fair was organized by Rebecca Fracchia and Deb Ryan. You can learn more about OCC's School of Computing & Applied Technologies by visiting our web page, emailing computingappliedtechnologies@sunyocc.edu, or calling 315.498.7300.