When you enter grade school, your main goal is to learn basic math, literature, and science. After grade school you go to junior high, where you learn more complex math problems and dig deeper into reading and science experiments. The comes high school, where your goal goes from learning basic material to learning who you are and what you want to do as a career.

Most people choose college and universities to start their out of high school life, while few will make the journey into the trades and go be the backbone of the United States. I am one of the few that decided college was not the route for me and chase the trades as a profitable career.

To start off the day, I wake up and get a nice cup of coffee before heading off to school. I’ll stay at school for a couple of classes before I leave to head to my dual-credit welding class offered by the Lincoln Trail College. Taking the welding class out of LTC for 2 years in high school will grant me a welding certification that I can then take to a union and show that I have basic knowledge of the aspects of welding. I am currently on my second year, taking a mix of a normal welding class along with a blueprint reading class.

This college welding class has taught me more then I could ever imagine. Another thing that has helped me get my foot farther into the door of welding as a career is taking my OSHA-10 class in high school and getting the certification.

OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Organization that is responsible for your rights as a worker and the needed safety precautions in a work environment. A OSHA-10 is a certification stating that you’ve have taken a 10 hour safety course and passed evaluation. This is to tell a company or union that you have the knowledge you need to know in order to safely work in a hazardous environment.

I am planning to join a union as soon as I graduate highschool and start my career head first without looking back.