So reading through a few of the recent threads where lack of skills in the industry seems to be the main bone of contention, I'm personally interested in the way that the industry is changing with bias towards the domestic sector. It seems to me that most of those coming out of college nowadays only seem to want to know about twin and earth.
I'm still young, under 30 that is, but despite having a crap education for the first two years I spent at college, I was lucky enough to learn from a lecturer in my final year who had only known commercial and industrial work, a rarity these days I know, considering most of the lecturers at my local college have never spent a single day on site! My last year had a heavy design bias and a lot on motors, with an apprenticeship served mainly within the commercial environment, I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. Still, during college and after leaving I took it upon myself to learn about things we never covered such as basic safety systems for machinery, basic plc programming and control panel design, build and fault recification.
The point is, I still have a hell of a lot to learn, and will continue to do so for years to come, but have at least got my foot in the door of a sector within the industry which I can see almost becoming extinct in later years as all the top boys start popping their clogs.
What I want to know is simple. If you are an electrician, an engineer or a trainee electrician or engineer and you can either do all of the following three things or are learning to do all of the following three things; put together a control system, no matter how basic or complex, program a plc, no matter how basic or complex and implement or at least understand how a basic safety system works, what is your age?
That's it.
I'm still young, under 30 that is, but despite having a crap education for the first two years I spent at college, I was lucky enough to learn from a lecturer in my final year who had only known commercial and industrial work, a rarity these days I know, considering most of the lecturers at my local college have never spent a single day on site! My last year had a heavy design bias and a lot on motors, with an apprenticeship served mainly within the commercial environment, I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. Still, during college and after leaving I took it upon myself to learn about things we never covered such as basic safety systems for machinery, basic plc programming and control panel design, build and fault recification.
The point is, I still have a hell of a lot to learn, and will continue to do so for years to come, but have at least got my foot in the door of a sector within the industry which I can see almost becoming extinct in later years as all the top boys start popping their clogs.
What I want to know is simple. If you are an electrician, an engineer or a trainee electrician or engineer and you can either do all of the following three things or are learning to do all of the following three things; put together a control system, no matter how basic or complex, program a plc, no matter how basic or complex and implement or at least understand how a basic safety system works, what is your age?
That's it.
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