I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show "Karl Townsend"
remove .NOT to reply wrote back on Fri, 04
Mar 2005 13:00:02 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :
Well it finally happened.
We are officially liquidating the Machine shop at South Seattle
Community College.

Sadly, I know of at least 4 machine shop closings at local colleges in our
(MN) area. I don't understand, why is it that today's kids aren't interested
in this field? (My son is an exception - he went to machine shop as a
Junior/Senior high school pre-grad option) This is a great field to be in,
there's a job in every town in the whole nation, you work inside, the pay's
good,etc. etc. Plus you set yourself up for one of the most satisfying
hobbies there is.

The main problem is a) who wants to work in a dirty machine shop?
(perceptions of the trade are out dated) and B) it takes a college degree
to make Real Money (wrong data on long term advantages of the trades.)

Other issues are the general perception that there is no demand for
machinists or other skilled workers: the US is a service based economy and
outsourceing everything that merely deals with real goods (like
transforming raw material into finished goods.)
Then there is the concern about liability if a student gets injured in
the course of training, the decision that there is no need for metal shop
in High School, and of course Seattle and Washington's governmental
aversion to industrial jobs.

There is a catch 22 at work here, there aren't enough machinists
available, so work is sent overseas, there aren't any jobs for machinists,
so why train to become one?
I just spent two and half years to complete the two year machine
technology program at Renton. [hey, I finished a four year bachelor's
program in six.] Now I'm ready to start the long road to competency, aka
"job experience". Ghods willing, I can get a journeyman's card in four
years, which will leave me fifteen years to build up a nest egg so that I
can retire at 70.

If I could do it over, someone would have said to me in High School
"Pete, you might like this...", and introduced me to the world of machine
shop. Of course, I'd have a different set of problems, and would probably
be living in Oklahoma, but ... .

--
pyotr filipivich.
as an explaination for the decline in the US's tech edge, James
Niccol wrote "It used to be that the USA was pretty good at
producing stuff teenaged boys could lose a finger or two playing with."