Atlantic Cape Community College is offering scholarships to Cape May County residents enrolled in the Drone Pilot and Technician program this fall at the Cape May County campus.
Drone classes train students in the operation and maintenance of the drones and are part of the college’s small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) program, which will begin relocating to Atlantic Cape’s Cape May County campus starting in September.
The program will fully transition to the Cape May County campus by spring 2023.
Drone usage is growing rapidly, and it spans various industries, including public safety, traffic management, construction, public works and land surveying, filmmaking, photography, structural inspections and real estate.
As more industries adopt this technology, the need for service and aircraft operators is steadily increasing, and job demand is on the rise.
Atlantic Cape is at the forefront of this growing industry. In July 2019, the college expanded its Aviation Department to include the drone program.
The college was recently awarded a National Science Foundation Grant along with Rowan University to help researchers and engineers examine new ways to improve artificial intelligence systems and machine learning algorithms in a new project called “Self-Assessment and Continual Learning on Edge Devices (SCenE).”
Drone pilot and technician scholarships, totaling more than $25,000, are available for new and returning students who are Cape May County residents and enrolled in the drone classes at the Cape May County campus.
Scholarships are not based on financial need.
Students taking seven credits or more will receive $2,500, while students taking six credits or less will receive $1,250.
These scholarships are made possible thanks to the Robert Hunter-Doherty Memorial Scholarship fund. The fund was established in 2015 and is awarded to students from Cape May County. Since then, the Doherty Family Charitable Foundation has donated $800,000 to the Atlantic Cape Foundation to be used for scholarships.
Those interested can register for classes at www.atlantic.edu/drones.
For more information about the program, contact Jim Taggart at (609) 892-9909 or jtaggart@atlantic.edu.
