So my senior year of high school is right around the corner so I decided, why don't I have some fun and take a welding class at our tech-college right next door. I went over today to check it out and the facility was immaculate: Lines of brand new MIG and TIG Lincoln electric welders. Everything was incredibly organized and it looks like there isn't a huge class size either (6-8). Any advice? I'm hoping to go to college, I just figured it would be a great thing to do to improve my hobby skills.
If they don't provide them, buy an auto darkening hood. I bought the cheap one from Harbor Freight for my tech school welding class and it served me well through the class and still works great.
I just finally picked up an auto darkening helmet for my last project.. It makes it almost like cheating..
Advice? Try to have a good time! See if it's interesting, you might end up making a career out of something like this. I really enjoyed the welding/machining class I took while earning my Bachelor's in Auto Tech. My highschool class was pretty much a joke; it sounds like you've got some good machines to learn on.
LopRacer wrote: If they don't provide them, buy an auto darkening hood. I bought the cheap one from Harbor Freight for my tech school welding class and it served me well through the class and still works great.
I've already got the HF one. Fortunately since I'm still in high school my school district pays for the class expenses which is fantastic.
Was it hard getting certified?
pres589 wrote: Advice? Try to have a good time! See if it's interesting, you might end up making a career out of something like this. I really enjoyed the welding/machining class I took while earning my Bachelor's in Auto Tech. My highschool class was pretty much a joke; it sounds like you've got some good machines to learn on.
Bachelor's in Auto Tech?
Tell me more
If you enjoy it, I would look REALLY long and hard at making it a vocation, especially if you are near an oilfield. The cost/benefit of college is becoming unreasonable unless you are going to university to be an engineer/architect/scientist.
I'd also look into the 3M speedglass auto darkening hoods. I understand you're on a budget, but it is leaps and bounds better than the HF hood, and they regularly run sales and rebates
Enjoy the class, it is very satisfying to get an American Welding Society (AWS) certification. I am finishing a community college welding program in May. I started with a Harbor Freight helmet and it worked great. I now have a Lincoln Viking that I like much more, the lens is much bigger and the battery is replaceable. My advice is to pay attention, ask questions, work hard and join the AWS It cost $15 annually as a student.
http://www.aws.org/w/a/about/index.html#A
Awesome.
Before you run out and buy auto-darkening helmets, coats, gloves, etc... go ask the shop teacher if he works with a local supply. I got a 25% student discount on that stuff when I took a similar class a few years ago.
Cool_Hand_Luke wrote: Bachelor's in Auto Tech?
http://www.pittstate.edu/department/auto/about-the-department/
That's my first degree. The tech programs at Pitt are pretty good about getting students into the labs and actively working on real systems. Mine is the Bachelor's so there's a lot of classes on the main campus like your 100 level English, Fine Arts, etc things to work through. The Associate's skips most of that and sets up students to be technicians. This is in Pittsburg, (not Pittsburgh) Kansas.
Let me know if you have more questions. Note: This is not an engineering degree. I'm not sure how the student mentioned on that site got into the Service Parts Engineering area of GM. PSU does not, to my knowledge, graduate Engineers per se; my electrical degree from PSU is an Electrical Engineering in Technology Bachelor's. I took a lot of the same math classes as you would as an EE student at other universities, but not Calc 3 or a few other really high level classes like that.
They all said what I wanted to and more. Have fun. You'll learn quickly and should be better than me in a day.
You'll need to log in to post.
