Saxon Fly (Alfred University’s Drone Club) consistently serves as a teaching vehicle to train its members in leadership, project management, and business/entrepreneurship skills by using drone technology for:
- Engineering research;
- Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) outreach;
- Hobby use; and,
- Commercial use (Precision Agriculture; Construction; Inspection; and Photographic industries).
Importantly, the club also serves to help Alfred University students obtain internships to jump start their careers. In his own words, Jason St. John, the club’s incoming President shares the following personal experience:
“This spring I accepted an internship at IGNITEU in Albany NY, where I will help their staff launch and run their accelerator program and other related activities.
I had my first interview with IGNITEU in early April 2017 over the phone. In that initial interview I talked about some of my work experiences, and the student clubs that I am a part of on the AU campus. The drone club came up in conversation when they asked if I had any leadership or entrepreneurial experience. I talked about the struggles and successes we have had with the club over the past 2 years of getting it to where it is today. In this interview, we talked about the club for roughly 15 minutes of the 40-minute interview.
In my follow up video conference interview with them I was introduced to the boss I would be working for in the summer if I received the internship position. We got about 20 minutes into the interview when they brought up the drone club and wanted me to share more of my experiences with it. This was a sigh of relief for me because I can talk about the drone club for hours. The topic of the drone club ended up taking about 30 minutes of my entire interview. They were fascinated not only by the drones, but that we as college students are attempting to harness this technology and form a business out of it. They loved the entrepreneurial spirit that the drone club has given me and I believe the interview went great.”
Go Saxons!
Go Saxon Fly!