Students who are part of Fulton Montgomery Community College's electronics program can expect to get a more hands on experience come this fall. As our Dayana Perez reports, the school is building a special room similar to the ones that will be found at the GlobalFoundries chip plant in Malta.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

JOHNSTOWN, N.Y. -- If you walk down the hall at the lower level of FMCC's classroom building, you'll notice something a bit different. Construction has started for the college's latest addition, a nano tech clean room to support its electronics curriculum.

"A clean room is used to manufacture computer chips and nano materials and it's designed to keep dust particles and dirt out of the room," said FMCC President Dustin Swanger.

The nearly $200,000 project funded by NASA will help students get a hands on experience on what they can expect if they want to land a job at the GlobalFoundries chip plant, which is expected to open up in 2012.

"It's an opportunity for students to understand how it's like to work in that environment because you just can't walk in off the street. You have to gown up, put booties on, masks and those sorts of things," said Swanger.

The lab, which is the only one of its kind at FMCC, will be equipped with high tech researching tools. School leaders say they have been adding smaller labs around campus to support the high demand as more and more students pencil their way into these courses. The school reports a 50 percent increase in enrollment in their electrical tech program.

"We had probably over 50 students in the electronics curriculum, which we have not seen in some time. So I'm really pleased to see students looking at technology because technology curriculum really is our future," said Swanger.

The room is expected to be completed in a few weeks, just in time for the fall semester.

Also, FMCC is currently working with Gloversville Transit to provide direct bus services from the school to the chip plant in Malta.