Adult Continuing ed...??????????

[H80N]

Is this happening in your community too????

What has happened to our education system???

There were some questions about practical training in local community colleges for adults..... I have always suggested that people take some classes at their local CC to gain some basic welding skills and understanding of the process,, ...............so...........out of curiosity... I looked up our closest one that just happens to be on the New York side in Binghamton..........
Broome Community College.... to see what they are offering these days....
and
Guess What???
they have eliminated any of that boring practical stuff and now teach courses in "houseplant happiness, feng shui, how to make "goats milk lotion"... and many other "Useful????" skills (am NOT making this up)

the largest collection of useless new age claptrap I have ever seen....
here is a link to the catalog....

no wonder we are flushing ourselves down the toilet while the world laughs...

https://www.sunybroome.edu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=85a3c86f-36e7-440a-9a41-445fca7fb1a5&groupId=39972

[cruizer]

Unfortunately its rather expensive to run a welding or carpentry class. To keep the repair cost to a minimum and keep the school classes going. I repair the machines for free.

It does pay in the long run if the students eventually get into welding, but I'm not too worried about it.

[H80N]

they did have some great practical programs... and as far as funding goes... they have spent millions of dollars in implementing all of the new touchy feely stuff.... take some time and browse that catalog.... it reads like a comedy script....

I was in total shock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wb4rt]

Our local college completely eliminated the welding and fabricating classes and sold the equipment. I took one Adult Ed class before, now there is not a place within 40 miles.

I think it is a sad state of affairs when the skills we need are not even being taught.

[Helios]

Well, let's see:

In his 11 years in office, King Mario turned the state of NY into an economic Hiroshima, chasing businesses and every industry (except lawyering) out of the state with his punitive tax and regulation schemes ... and now it sounds like his son Andrew is a chip off the ol' block!

Better just shuddup and pay yer taxes if ya know what's good for ya!

[dondlhmn]

A buddy and I used to take welding classes together and we took four or five or six semesters at our local CC so we can both weld a lot of stuff now on about any material and using about any process we want/need to. The last couple of classes we probably spent more time fixing stuff...foot controllers, tensile testers, truing up grinding wheels that the dummies made grooves in, cleaning up messes that were left by other students, etc....Most of this was stuff that the school didn't have money to have fixed or done and the instructors didn't seem to have time to do a lot of that, either. The welding lab (as is the machine shop lab) is shared between the college and the technical high school, so the kids (of all ages) tend to do what kids do...tear things up because they just "know better" how do do things and won't ask how something works and then won't admit to having torn sumething up so, at least, the instructors will know something is broken..

My buddy and I are both old enough so that we got the "old fart's discount when we wanted to take a class. Then the school eliminated that program, so we went to taking the variable credit courses where we could take a course for only one credit. You pay for courses by the credit, so that made it cheap enough so that we could afford to continue to attend. THEN the school took that option away, so now neither of us goes to school, not that we need degrees or anything....I already have a BS Degree. This also means that things just go to **** in the shop and stay that way because they rarely get fixed. Mostly the only people that fixed things were me and my buddy and one other older guy that spent a lot of time in that lab.....a LOT of which was fixing stuff. Not to mention that whenever we fixed something, often WE paid for the parts or supplies we needed or brought in our own tools to do the job.

The end result is that all the welding stuff sits there, not getting fixed when it needs, not to mention that instead of SOME money coming in from us "old farts", now they have NO MONEY coming in from us (who spent more time fixing stuff than welding and, often when welding provided our OWN filler rods and metal to practice on as the school didn't seem to be able to a lot of the time.

So, who says the people running the schools have to or need to know ANYTHING about what the trades schools/trades people/up and coming kids really need or what skills are actually useful to us and OUR COUNTRY? About 90% of the people I personally know that are involved in education/school administration, etc. are so far off in their own little dream worlds that they are totally out of touch with reality.

Hey...my house plants are already happy! And I didn't have to take a class about how to keep them that way.

Don J
Reno, NV

[H80N]

if they want to bring the jobs back from overseas... we will need knowledgable skilled professionals like welders and machineist... not just a white collar management or overseer class..... we have an increasing service sector and a decrease in skilled people to produce things..... kinda sad.....

the old too many chiefs and not enough indians story.....

we are less and less able to train the talented skilled people that are willing to solve problems in a hands on manner and get their hands dirty....

[Welder99]

Welding Trades

Well here where I live they have a local vocational trade school that offered welding both for young ppl and adult training.A few years ago they stopped offering welding sold the equipment.They get local taxes and state funding.With the growing shortage in the trades this is one reason why.They offer nothing to help the trades.Go figure?.
This is the NEW way we do business,No wonder other countries are bringing in replacement workers with skills we no longer have......
Maybe we need to start a program called SAVE THE TRADES.
Wake up America.

[aametalmaster]

We have a young 30 year old floor sweeper where i work and he is happy sweeping floors like he has done for the last 10 years. I keep telling him that i am going to teach him how to weld. So last week during my 90 day reveiw with the company owner i said i wanted to teach him how to weld and would come in for free on my days off to show him. So now he sweeps for 5 hours a day and trains the other 5 guess you can't beat that. So soon there will be another welder in the world...Bob

[Blondie_486]

Fortunately the community college in my area still has welding and machining courses available.

However when I was in college pursuing a degree in computer science, more exactly a degree in micro computer networking it was all geared toward managing an IT department rather than actually learning to network computers. My question to the school that went unanswered. "How can I lead a department of IT technicians when I know nothing about how to do their job"? I'm 8 credits short of a BS degree and it's going to remain that way.

I lead welders, fitters, fabricators and machinists because I KNOW how to do their jobs! I've always had the respect of my subordinates because when they have a problem I can put my hands on the project and show them what is wrong and how to do it properly.

[1930case]

South Carolina cut their workforce training budget, so instead of paying to train dislocated workers so they can get jobs, they end up handing out a lot more money in unemployment checks!

Maybe I'm weird, but it would seem to make more sense to train the willing in skills where they can get employed than pay them to do nothing and not even offer training.

[TxDarth]

I took a class at the local JC here in Tyler, TX last summer.....

I was amazed at the lab and facilities in general - the best of everything. I asked the dept chairman why everything looked so new - he said the state had given grants to many of the local JC's as they knew many of the welders were retiring and there were no students to replace them. They built over 40 new welding stations each complete with welders and overhead fume system. I know the fume filtration alone was just north of $150K....clean as an operating room, well almost anyway.

They even have a CNC bed that must be 15X30 foot

Tyler is in Northeast Texas, oil and gas country........

[aametalmaster]

I lead welders, fitters, fabricators and machinists because I KNOW how to do their jobs! I've always had the respect of my subordinates because when they have a problem I can put my hands on the project and show them what is wrong and how to do it properly.

Now if we can lead some plant managers to see what we are trying to say and how to fix it. Seems like those guys all learned from the same book and don't have a clue on how it really is...Bob

[Toolnut]

In the Dallas area Brookhaven CC has a welding class, I'm taking it to learn TIG, it is more of a sculpture class than a technical welding class but it works for me.

I haven't checked around but it must not be very common in the Dallas area because one couple was driving about an hour to get to the class.

I believe Mountainview or Cedar Valley CC on the Southside of Dallas has a class where you can get certified.

[Burnt hands]

I have taken 3 classes at this local vo-tech school.

http://www.eastech.org/continuing-education/welding/

First one was about 30 years ago (stick) when I was just starting to learn and the other 2 classes were within the last 3 years for fun (TIG) and to see the latest technology.

Interestingly enough, the instructor is still there after over 35 years.
This says quite a bit the school and the dedication of the instructor.

I stop in periodically and bring samples for the students to play with and
to show them what can be done.
Since most don't get a chance to work with titanium,
I gave them some of my mistakes and wire to play with.
Another time, I brought in a piece of graphite plate about 1/2" thick and asked one of the students to cut it with the Hypertherm plasma cutter.
Showed it to the instructor first and he said "go ahead - they'll learn a lot trying".
This started a lively discussion among them trying to analyze what was happening and why.
When I saw their reaction in both cases, I was amazed and humbled.
I believe these examples are why my instrutor is still teaching even though there are the usual smarty pants who know everything.

So all may not be lost................................I hope.