Roilan back in his SUNY Broome days

A month after graduation, Roilan Salinas had a job lined up as a front-end developer. Other opportunities followed, and these days he’s following a new passion as a product engineer for a news company.

His work for Mic.com is done entirely remotely, which allows him to live in the city he has come to love: Binghamton.

“I like the culture and the slower pace of life. I always liked it here,” said Salinas, who graduated in 2015 with an associate’s degree in Business Information Management – Web Development. “It seems like there’s a pretty big push to get Binghamton up and going again, which is pretty cool.” 

Before he headed north to attend SUNY Broome, Salinas had dropped out of the City University of New York twice, unsure of what path to take. An avid gamer at the time, his hobby led to an idea for a business – game server hosting – that ultimately paid for his college education.

To promote his business, he needed a webpage – and decided to take an elective HTML and CSS class at SUNY Broome to spruce up his virtual storefront. That class sparked a new fascination with website development, and a career path different than what he had imagined before.

Six months before graduating, he started his job search in earnest, landing a position back in New York City. He joined Mic.com last year. His role: to get news stories and other media to readers via different formats, a must in a primarily digital company.

He returns to New York City periodically, to speak to students at his former high school about how college can help their lives.

“Sometimes it’s very hard to know there is a better way,” he reflected.

He has also come to accept that passions – even deeply held ones – can change. While his career aspirations upon entering SUNY Broome focused more on business proper, they have since been eclipses by his focus on programming and software engineering.

Sometimes the paths you take can lead you in unexpected directions, whether to a new hometown or a new career.

“I only got into this field because I went there,” he said of his SUNY Broome experience. “It all started because I took an elective HTML class. I would not be where I am if I had not decided to go to that school and do that program and take that class.”

Find out more about the Business Information Management program here, and visit www.sunybroome.edu/apply to apply.

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