High School Metal Shop

Date 02-25-2004 18:10

I recently gave a presentation at a local High School Shop in Northern California. After talking with the teacher and also with eariler research I believe these types of shops are being cast by the wayside. As a High School graduate and spending time in this type of shop , which lead to my career now, this alarms me.

I know that for most of these students it is just a class that can be fun and they don't have to work hard. But I also know that many excellent welders have gotten their spark in classes much like this one, myself being one of those.

I shared some of the better projects that I have had the pleasure being part of hoping to spark the interest in a career in the welding field. Several of the students showed interest in what they saw and I hope this will encourage them to consider a career in the welding field. I let them know that burning rod itn't the only option the tradesmen is only part of the intire picture. But lets face it welding student today are the welders we will be inspecting in the years to follow, these are the welding engineer, robotic programer just to name a few that will drive the industry in the coming years and decades.

Do you think there is a way we can make the interest in school shop more than a class to mess around in? I have read breifly about scholorships in the welding journal, is there any other types of insentives to try to drive student farther than just getting through the class.

Lastly I am almost certain that this shop is the last of a handfull in the state of California, due to the lack of funding and the ingnorance to the need for these types of vocational training, in the words of one school supervisor "these students don't need to know how to build these product we can just order them from a catolog".

I have read in the forum about the decline in quality welder and this is where is starts. I don't what is happening in your area of the nation, but if this type of decline continues then I supect the qualities of the future welder will also decline making our jobs as inspector, QA directors and employer more difficult. If you can help with any ideas about how to push these class farther I will share them with the school and the school district. Also any idea on funding these programs i.e. scholorships, grant, donations please feed you idea in.

Thank you now for the time you took to read this and any ideas that are given, Jerry

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 02-25-2004 18:38

Hi Jerry,
Have you seen the video that AWS has put together?
http://aws.org/wemco/video.html
Download it and give it a review.
There are other advertisements that AWS has published that helps "spark" some interest and they are listed on the AWS site under publications or education, I don't remember which.
I recommend getting envolved with your local AWS section if you are'nt already, our section is very educationally oriented and is associated with several community colleges in one way or another. High School instructors from our area attend the meetings as well.

I find that some of these sections cover a lot of area and people are having to drive great distances to attend the meetings. I asked AWS to transfer me to a section that is closer to where I live and it took a couple hours of driving off of me. give it a try if you haven't already.
John Wright

PS. post back with your rating of the short movie.

By PamelaBatson Date 06-04-2004 22:00

Please help if you can. I am trying to donate a large 6-horse/stock trailer to a welding school, or high school welding program. The trailer needs welding "help" and is located in Davis, CA. The donatee will have to provide transportation. Thanks, Pam

By cccasey (**)

Date 06-06-2004 02:06

Jerry,
I'm from rural Arizona (northeastern part of the state) and our high schools faced the same dilema. Face it, welding materials and consumables are extremely expensive and I can see why many schools with tight budgets have little to offer welding students.
What we did was form a Joint Technical Educational District between the local community college and a vocational based administration for multiple high schools. Our state funds this district separately from the high schools and the community college and by combining budgets we were able to develop a top notch welding program by building a professional welding shop with first rate equipment and an adequate consumables budget. We orginally aligned ourselves with AWS as a SENSE school and use the NCCER welding curriculum to support the required competencies.
In a nut shell, we built a professional shop in a central town and bussed the students from 5 high schools (as far as 45 minutes away) to this shop for a three hour session 5 days a week.
The students who take the time to come are serious about welding training and don't consider it an easy class to come to just for HS credit. Rather they have the opportunity to get their Entry Level Welder certification through the AWS along with other industry certs.
We've grown rapidly in 4 years (from 30-200 students) and now have two additional shops servicing other communities in the out lying areas.
We've done well in VICA/Skills USA competitions and have had other HS program directors travel to us to tour our facilities.
I'd be happy to give you more info on the specifics of how we set things up if you're interested.
Let me know, and by the way, it's good to hear a young person like yourself being so concerned about their community. My respects!!!
Curtis

By ramseysteel Date 11-17-2004 05:37

It’s a shame to hear that the welding/metal shop classes have been cut down the way they have. I owe my whole career to my high school Vocational Welding Technology teacher Mr. Godell at Fountain Valley High School, CA. 1975-77.
I didn’t like the class at the time, I wanted to mess around and make “projects” etc. But I signed up for this class; we had two hours, (one study for the Los Angeles City written test for structural welder certification and the other for the practical welding of test plates to pass the AWS and then the LA City Structural Steel test.

I got out of HS and went right to work welding making more money than my friends, at least double min wage at the time (1977). I did work very hard over the years as a welder for various companies, structural steel erector, and later a structural steel contractor.
CA lic C-51. And now a CWI, ICBO, ICC, LA City Inspector in CA with a few inspectors working for me.

Not bad for a guy who didn’t think he liked welding.
Structural Steel & Welding (Inspection) is my life now and I enjoy my work very much. Its not like work at all and I owe it all to my high school teacher Mr Godell. I even looked up his ph. number on the Internet a couple of years ago to thank him. He shook it off like it was nothing, but with out that high school class and with no more education than the classes I later took to become an inspector, who knows what crappy job or rut a guy might fall into.

My high school age kids now ask me why they don’t have these shop classes in school.

By chapple (*)

Date 11-17-2004 15:13

jfwi

One thing that has been some help to Michigan welding schools is to
continue to get local industries to help with the welding program.
The local industries are the ones that will benefit from welding classes
being available as this will increase the talent pool. Ask them to donate
raw metal, it may even be in the form of press, or shear offal.
Some welding distributers may be willing to donate consumables.
Although this will not cover the total cost of a comprehensive welding
class it will help to reduce the amount of funds needed from the schools
budget