A look inside the Computer & Electronics Center (CEC)

By Erik Squire

The Beacon went to meet with Howard Burpee, Professor of Computer Technologies, to learn a little about the CEC program. However, he was leaving just as we came in, but kindly directed us to the very knowledgeable Collin Gebhardt to fill us in, instead. Colin serves two roles here, he is a work study student, and a peer tutor as well. He enthusiastically told us a bit about what goes on in the Center where he works.

Students come to learn at the Computer Technology Department to either become a super user or power user of Windows or Linux. The CEC does predominantly have a Windows focus in this program, but as of late they’ve been moving more towards Linux. A lot more people use Linux (including students) because it’s cheaper and it’s open source which makes it much easier to modify than Windows. The program also covers how to operate Windows operating systems, from client machines to server machines (as well as the equivalent of that in Linux). Furthermore, they instruct in things such as databases, web development, PHP (which is structured programing), bash-scripting, startup prompts for Windows and Linux, and all the neat little trickery in between.

Colin also talked about the knowledge students take from this program. In his words “you leave here knowing a little about a lot.” Many students have a focus on network administration, server administration, or even website development. In fact, by the time the students graduate everyone has their own website (it’s a requirement for graduation). Collin explained that once you learn the conceptuality behind most of these courses its very easily translatable into different aspects of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, etc. It’s expected of people in this career field to have a wide range of knowledge.
As far as the jobs students can get after graduating from this program, Collin has seen a lot of people go places. He knows students who went on to Tela Technologies, Texas Instruments, as well as one of the semiconductors factories here in the Portland area. He even knows of someone who went on to be project manager of Net Tel, a telecommunications company in Westbrook. Many people also end up doing their own thing, and work for themselves, or end up technicians for companies that didn’t previously have technician jobs.

Let’s just say there’s some pretty great job security for this line of work. Information Security is a major that SMCC will be offering next semester, and according to Collin there is currently zero unemployment in that industry, in the world.
The Computer Tech industry standards are between $50-60 an hour. In fact Collin was paid $25hr for his internship. The Hammond Lumber Co didn’t have a technical department. He became their tech department and set his own wage by charging half the industry standard. Collin also knows someone who has been doing an unpaid internship for that last six months with the Federal Courthouse in Portland. When he’s finished he’ll have just about any door open to him. That’s the thing about his kind of work; you are really building your reputation.

Don’t worry if you’re not too tech savvy, Collin points out that there are people who come in to the CEC program with no prior knowledge, climb the ranks, and get these jobs in no time. As for him, the program has been great to him. He was working at Better Rest moving furniture around, but he always wanted to work with computers. He said he finally put himself in a place where he could work and learn at the same time, all while getting paid. That sounds like a pretty good deal.