HOME : The advantages of an apprenticeship
Too often, a college education is the best way to learn a trade, and that anything else is second-rate. This belief is simply wrong.
An apprenticeship in the skilled trades of the construction industry is an advanced education. It is “the other four year degree.” And as an advanced education, it offers young people some fantastic advantages:
- Apprentices are paid good wages while learning the skills of a trade. An apprentice is not cheap labor.
- The rate of pay for an apprentice increases with knowledge and ability.
- Apprenticeship offers opportunity for continued wages and job security upon com-
pletion of training. - An apprentice becomes self-reliant at a comparatively early age. Apprenticeship imposes no financial burden to his or her parents.
- Apprenticeship provides classes to learn the theory of a trade and the techniques which cannot be taught economically at a job site.
- Apprentice instructors are capable, practical journeymen selected for the industry by the Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee. An apprenticeship is a quality education with the best teachers in the business.
- An apprentice learns to produce with modern tools and machines, and will gain ex-
perience under the most current methods and industry standards. - An apprentice learns to properly use tools or install modern industrial materials worth thousands of dollars during his or her apprenticeship. This is one of the many reasons why a competent journeyman cannot be developed in a classroom.
- An apprentice works under the direction of a competent journeyman at all times to receive close personal attention.
- Apprentice progress, as reflected in work reports and class grades, is constantly
reviewed by the Joint Apprenticeship Committee to ensure mastery of their subject material and skills. - An apprentice is monitored during his or her indenture by the Joint Apprenticeship
Committee to insure that he or she has an opportunity to develop all the skills of the craft and become a fully qualified journeyman. - As journeymen in the construction industry, graduates of an apprenticeship program will be engaged in an honorable and respected occupation with opportunities for advancement limited only by their own ability and ambition.
- Statistics show that nearly 85% of apprenticeship program graduates stay in Montana and in the career for which they have trained.
- With experience and study, the apprentice can become a foreman, estimator, or superintendent. Many of the owners and employers in the construction industry started their careers in an apprenticeship program.
NEXT: Find out how an apprenticeship program works
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