Apprenticeship offers DCSD students career training before graduation
Demetrius Gilbert sits in front of the computers and 3-D printers used in the Auto CAD classes at Director of the Darlington County Institute of Technology. Photo by Melissa Rollins
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
Often times the chance to get hands-on experience in a career field takes place during the later half of a student’s college career through an internship. Through a partnership with Apprenticeship Carolina and several local companies, students in the Darlington County School District are getting that experience before they even earn their high school diploma.
Robbie Smith, Director of the Darlington County Institute of Technology, said that several of his students have completed an apprenticeship and received glowing reviews from the company; one is even working full-time with the company he apprenticed for after graduating last year.
“We all want what’s best for our kids and a lot of times what we think is best might not be,” Smith said. “Sometimes parents think that kids have to get a college degree or they won’t make any money. There is nothing wrong with going to college but at the same time imagine being nineteen, six months to a year out of high school, and making $20 an hour with no debt. I was paying college debt for 10 years. That is not for everybody. If you’ve got the skill or the ability to do something you enjoy doing why go into a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt for a degree that might not do anything for you?”
Smith said that he knew what an apprenticeship was and after talking with representatives of Apprenticeship Carolina he knew it was something DCIT needed to offer.
“I got to talking to the people with Apprenticeship Carolina and found out it was a state and federal program that is allowing students to get credentialed; they actually become a journeyman when they complete it,” Smith said. “It is an effort to get people out there when they are younger and get them more experience in these different trade careers.”
The major barrier to doing an apprenticeship program is having companies that are willing to participate.
“The first person I talked to about it was Danny Johnson at North Industrial Machine over in Hartsville,” Smith said. “He was very supportive and said that they would be interested in several different areas so we actually selected some students who interviewed in engineering, machine tool and welding. They actually hired five kids last year. Three of the five were seniors last year and have graduated. One of them, he has been hired full-time at Sun Superior which is one of North Industrial’s properties. He is welding, I believe. They hired him full-time and that is how it is supposed to work, that is the goal.”
Smith said that depending on the company and the agreement, some apprentices could even attend a two-year program on the company’s dime.
Demetrius Gilbert, a senior at Darlington High School, is one of the DCSD students making the most of his time in school. He said that even before the apprenticeship, DCIT helped him learn skills he will need in the future.
“I decided to come to DCIT when I heard about the amazing classes that they had about learning about the careers and stuff you want to go into once you go to college,” Gilbert said. “I heard that you get to do hands-on training for those things that you want to do later in life. That is what brought me to DCIT.”
Career-planning has been on his mind since eighth-grade, Gilbert said.
“I’ve been thinking about getting into the engineering field ever since I was in eighth grade,” Gilbert said. “We had a guidance counseling meeting and they asked what career would I be looking to get into when I was older and since my dad was an electrical engineer, I thought I’d take it a little further and do something else in engineering. I’m thinking of nuclear engineering.”
Gilbert said that his dad has been very supportive of his career choice.
“My dad feels pretty great that I’m taking it a little further than he did because he only went to tech but I’m going to a four-year school,” he said. “He’s pretty glad about it and he pushes me everyday to keep going further and keep my head focused and do what I’m supposed to do.”
Gilbert’s apprenticeship has been at North Industrial Machine’s Sun Superior.
“I’ve been learning a little bit of Auto CAD here but since I’ve been at North Industrial they taught me a step higher, basically like what I’ll be learning in college,” Gilbert said. “I’ve been learning a lot more Auto CAD (commercial computer-aided design) and more hands-on work, how to paint, everything I can do based on my age. What I liked the most was the Auto CAD; to take a part that I see with my eyes and build it right on Auto CAD.
The basics that Mr. Woods is teaching here, I’m using that and it helped me strengthen my skills.”
Smith said that he has been blown away by the experience his students are getting.
“My college roommate was an engineering major,” Smith said. “I remember he had a job working for an engineering firm and he’d go in in the evenings and do CAD work for them. I had no idea what he was talking about. He was a senior ready to graduate from college. It is fascinating because here we have juniors and seniors learning the same program that he was using and that you use on the job. That is neat because it doesn’t work that way in a lot of classes. In engineering they are learning things that they go right onto the job and use.”