vagabond no problem,.... seriously, I didn't mean for my words to come across as too defensive...LOL. It's just that I have never heard a bad word about anyone in my several years as a certified welding inspector, other than that one instructor who has stirred up some bad feelings in the past.
AWS really does have some very good people in place, and I think they do an awesome job instructing these CWI seminars. There is a lot of ground to cover in that week of instruction, and I feel these guys do a great job covering all of that. What impresses me is when you hear about how they spend the extra time after class making sure you grasp the concepts and if you have any doubts they don't want you leave until you completely understand it. When an instructor goes to those lengths you can't help but give him/her a great report at the end of the week. Maybe folks don't brag on their instructors enough on this forum, and so in a breif search...the complaints seem to out weight the good reports.
I really feel for those folks who took the seminar and drew that one guy and they came away with the feeling of being ripped off. I took the seminar under that guy and I know exactly what they are speaking of. In No way shape or form did he ever spend any extra time helping folks who may have been struggling in that class that I took with him. I did manage to pass the first time through somehow. I tell ya, when you come away from 6 hours of testing, you really don't have a good feeling about how well you may or may not have done...you simply have to wait (sweat) it out and look for the mail to bring your good or bad news in a few weeks....LOL