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HM
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Please take into consideration when reading the following that I am not an electrician. My father was, and I've done a fair amount of electrical work in my time. But that qualifies me for diddly squat in terms of representing the profession.
My view is that to become a competent electrician requires doing the job under the expert tuition of someone who is already qualified. It isn't something I would expect that can be learnt out of a book, so the evening class route alone doesn't sound very practical in this respect. I wouldn't expect a future employer to offer a job based upon academic qualifications only, and indeed I would think an employer might rank practical previous experience higher than any pieces of paper that might have been accumulated.
Sometimes when confronted with an electrical job there is more than one way of providing a solution - it's not always quite as simple as wiring a light switch. And it is that knowledge which can only be imparted by being with someone who can explain why something is done in a particular way for that particular job which is so important.
One avenue your son might like to explore is to have a chat with the guy that runs the courses at the local college (where the evening classes are run). Explain the situation to him and see what his views are. At the very least I would expect he would be reasonably knowledgeable about how people might get into the profession.
Finally, perhaps a lesson from my own personal experience may be of help. I'd made up my mind to become an electronics engineer, but didn't enter the apprenticeship arrangement. At age 20 I'd got the qualification (HNC Electronics), but didn't have the experience.
I worked for a large semiconductor manufacturer employing some 3,500 people at the time. So brazen as hell I went and knocked on the door of the plant manager who was responsible for the electronic maintenance department for the whole factory - he was like next to god in the management structure of the company, way too high for me to be talking to him but I hadn't actually learnt that at the time. I told him what I wanted to achieve, showed how determined I was by knocking on his door, and a month later he offered me the next job that became available.
Moral of the story: If your son is determined to get into the sparky trade then he won't do himself any harm knocking on doors that stand between him and what he wants to do. I did exactly that, I'm proud to have done that because I couldn't get to where I wanted in the career direction I was in at the time, but looking back I don't know how I ever managed to cobble together enough bravery to do it at the time.
Andrew
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Training (Read 5048 times)
