If you are going to a good community college in the Chicago area I
expect it
will be a lot like mine even though I took my class in northern
California.
My class was a typical college class. There was a syllabus, a big
expensive
book, 130 bucks when I bought mine, quiz's every week, mid terms and a
final
too. I took the class at night too and the first part every time was
classroom work then we went into the shop. The problem I had was that
there
was only one instructor. He was good but there were too many people
wanting
his time and I had to wait in line to ask a question. You may not have
that
but you probably will.

My class will have 17 people in it, max.

i

That's good but welding classes are not like your ordinary college class
where most of the students don't give a **** and can't wait to get out of
the room. Most people in welding class want to be there and want to learn
how to weld. They are usually older and are a lot more motivated than normal
students. So you will only have to fight with sixteen other guys, probably,
to have access to the teacher. Part of my problem was that I had no
experience at all when I took the class. Everyone else in the class already
knew how to weld at least to some extent so I was way behind to begin with.
You would think that since most people had experience welding they wouldn't
have as many questions for the instructor. Wrong! Like I said, every time I
wanted to ask a question I had to wait in line with half a dozen people
ahead of me and that went on all night. Maybe you won't have that problem,
if not count your blessings. One thing that I learned in that class is that
welding is not one process but a bunch of them. A good welder knows about
all of them and can do them all at least fairly well. That is what takes
time. A guy can learn how to do stick pretty quick and if that's all he does
he's not really a welder. When you can do all of it on all kinds of metal,
then you can weld. By that criteria, I'm not a welder.

Hawke