Below is a guest blog from Cariad Thomas-Cooke. She is one of three females currently training to become an electrician at Sheffield College. Here, she talks about her first experiences in the classroom and out on site.
It's been a bit of a rocky start at
the college, with building works not being completed on time for our super new
centre of learning and some timetabling challenges for the staff to solve.
We were all itching for the workshops
to be finished so we could start our practical sessions and get on with making
things. Thankfully everything’s fully up and running now and we're all enjoying
trying to improve our skills.
We've also hit the ground running with
our less enthusiastic theory studying. Having our first exam (Health and
Safety) made us take things seriously and trying our best to not waste a single
lesson.
The lessons are packed full of
important information so classroom work on Fridays often has our heads spinning
a bit. But we're all in the same boat and it's surprising how much can sink into
a brain after a good night's sleep.
All the tutors have been really great
throughout. I loved the pep talk at the beginning of the year which was obviously originally tailored for the lads in my class, but needed to be adapted slightly now
that there's a woman on the course with them.
The guys in my class are great. After
establishing my reasons for wanting to become an electrician are similar to
theirs our class has a really friendly atmosphere.
I've also really enjoyed getting some
work experience with Mand Made – a local domestic electrical company run by an
award winning female electrician. There's certainly a big difference between
the college workshop practice sessions - screwing parts into nice, soft wooden
boards with plenty of space to work in and the realities of working on site -
like cramming yourself into a narrow kitchen cabinet and curling around a
corner to find a way to reach through cut-outs in the back designed to give you
access to wire in a new socket!
But even the busiest day was better than
being sat in an office staring at a database or spreadsheet on a computer
screen all day (in my opinion).
The customers have been really nice - providing cups of tea and one even
introduced me to her unique home-made biscuits.
As I'm just starting out I'm a lot
slower than the apprentice working there, who's got about 3 years more
experience than me, and I've had to have lots of things explained so I could be
sure I was doing the right thing. I can't wait to get more experience so I can
speed up and know enough to be able to do more fault finding.
I've got another college exam in a
couple of weeks. Apparently it's the one that has the highest failure rate so
*fingers crossed*. I will be getting buried into revision for a while.
I'm also hoping to get an insight into
working for a larger company with a new work experience placement – details are
in the process of being finalised so watch this space. If I get any spare time
I might also be able to spend some more time working at Mand Made helping out
and learning more.