{ GIS Newest Program Offered }
SANBORN, N.Y. (Sept. 3, 2008) — This Fall, NCCC will launch an innovative two-semester program in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for students interested in working in the rapidly expanding fields of geospatial science and technology, remote sensing, image interpretation and mapping.
This 29-credit hour certificate in GIS will help students acquire geospatial skills and proficiency with the technologies used to collect, analyze and display spatial information through the use of a wide range of GIS software, including remote sensing and the use of GPS devices.
Upon completion of the program, certificate holders will be able to proceed directly to a workplace opportunity using GIS skills. Several local organizations, including Conestoga Rovers and Associates of Niagara Falls, Bergmann Associates of Buffalo and Rochester, ATSI Engineering and Wendell-Duchscherer of Amherst, among others, are already committed to employing students with GIS skills or assisting NCCC students with internships.
“Our focus is on employment in Western New York,” NCCC instructor and Coordinator of the National GeoTech Center: Northeast Robert Lord said. “We’re trying to create jobs that will keep our kids in Western New York, so that they don’t feel they have to leave the area to find gainful employment. We are providing students with skills for a successful career, not just a minimum wage job.”
GIS has been listed as “One of the Twenty Top Hot Job Tracks for the Next Decade” by US News and World Report and Lord says the current demand for GIS technicians is “explosive.”
Career opportunities in the GIS field are growing faster than the national average for all occupations. There are currently career opportunities for GIS students in over 160 organizations in Erie and Niagara counties and over 3,500 organizations that use GIS statewide.
These organizations are looking for trained geospatial technicians as a core of their business.
“We’re here to meet the community’s needs. Local employers are in need of GIS skills, so we are teaching these skills to our students -- whether these students are young adults preparing to begin their career after high school or adults desiring to add new skills to their educational backgrounds or re-training for a career change.”
GIS skills can be applied to many different subjects and lead to related occupations in very diverse fields. GIS technicians are currently in demand in economics, communications, architecture, market research analysis, engineering, surveying and mapping, oceanography, landscape architecture, real estate brokerage and property management, environmental planning, and many other fields.
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