Both IMEC, and SUNY are heavily graduate research oriented. There are some undergrad opportunities there, but one's chances to get there are probably less than getting into MIT.
The "death valley" in between graduation, first employment, and a first real substantial job in semi industry is super-duper real, and acute problem. It's a problem in Asia, and 10x of than in US.
Obviously it is important to get hands on experience even as an undergrad. Ideally you can do that at your university, otherwise there are plenty of opportunities for internships. At least in Europe I had absolutely no problem finding one. It can't hurt to also look for second tier companies.
My first full time job in line of "make us a WP website" was CAD $65k. An intern stipend at a semi lab was $16k cash a year, with a very competitive recruitment like "show us you was in top 10% of your group"