TIL a quick chat with a retired welder at a coffee shop in Tacoma changed how I think about apprenticeships

He told me he learned more in his first 6 months sweeping floors than most kids do in 2 years of trade school, and now I'm wondering if formal training is really worth the cost or if we should just pair everyone with a mentor instead.

2 comments

2 Comments

mason_foster682d ago

Yeah my uncle was a machinist and he always said the same thing, you learn way more on the floor than in a classroom. He took me under his wing for a summer and I picked up stuff in three months that would've taken years in a school setting.

lilycraig2d ago

Real world experience just hits different. Classrooms teach you the perfect textbook version, but the floor teaches you what to do when the machine starts making that noise no manual explains. Your uncle probably showed you more tricks in that one summer than any instructor with a PowerPoint ever could. There's just no substitute for getting your hands dirty and learning from someone who's already made all the mistakes. Schools give you the foundation, sure, but the real skills come from actually doing the work.