When Ross Smith attended College of The Albemarle (COA), he was a dual-enrolled high school student working to complete both his high school diploma and earn credits toward a four-year college degree.
That academic track isn’t an easy one, said Bobby Adams, a chemistry instructor at COA who taught Smith in several chemistry classes, and is usually a path pursued by only an ambitious high school student. Smith proved to be a perfect candidate. In 2009, he graduated from COA with 40 credit hours and a 4.0 grade-point average.
The former home-schooled student also was given COA’s Outstanding Associate in Science Award in 2009.
“He was clearly the top student in the program that year,” Adams said. “He was one of the top students we had in the past 10 years.
“Ross was mature for his age when he was a student here,” Adams added. “He was a driven, studious student. He knew what he wanted to do early on and went about meeting that goal. He was the type of student that got the most from what we had to offer at COA.”
Smith’s outstanding academic record earned him acceptance to North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh. He graduated from the NCSU in 2013 with his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and now works as an Associate Process Engineer in Raleigh with Fuel Tech.
Today, the former Elizabeth City resident tries to make the environment a cleaner one, as he designs and optimizes the facility’s air pollution control equipment.
“Basically, it’s helping our facilities treat their emissions so they can meet Environmental Protection Agency requirements,” Smith said. “At the same time you’re making something more environmentally friendly, you’re also making it more efficient and that’s what I’m doing in my job. I like it. It’s a fairly new field. There are a lot of jobs you can get with a chemical engineering degree that are environmentally focused.”
Smith credits the decision to accumulate college credits at COA with helping him discover what he wanted to do with his life. Those prerequisite classes in chemistry and calculus helped him decide to pursue an engineering degree. “I was pretty grateful for the opportunity to take classes at COA that way,” Smith said. “It was a great way to transfer to a four-year college.”