There is a lot of talk right now about encouraging students to explore careers in the trades industry. Jumping right into a career where you are paid to learn and not sit in a class all day sounds very exciting.
From my experience as an Instrumentation Apprentice, here are some pros and cons to starting your career as an apprentice.
Apprenticeship Pros:
- Paid Schooling
- On the Job Experience
- Greater Job Opportunities Upon Completion
- Paid to learn
- Little to No Debt
Apprenticeship Cons:
- Large Learning Curve
- Quality of training can differ from one company to another
- Knowledge can be confined to the tools and equipment utilized within one’s workplace.
There is a lot to love when looking at the apprenticeship route. The paid schooling and the on-the-job experience can’t be beaten. The worst part about starting with an Instrumentation apprenticeship is how difficult it is to get hired as an apprentice in the first place.
Here are some pros and cons that I have found from going the school route.
School Pros:
- Proper Understanding of the Fundamentals
- Internships
- Diploma
- Networking
- Access to many different makes and models of transmitters/sensors
School Cons:
- High Tuition Costs
- Often More Technical than Practical
- Many Jobs Require Journeyman Ticket
What a lot of people enjoy about school is the fact that it gives you a diploma. You get a piece of paper that shows you have the required knowledge and experience to start in the trade. You also have more experience with a large amount of different equipment which you won’t always be exposed to during your apprenticeship. The downside is that there is a fair amount of stuff that you’ll rarely use in your career. Going to school isn’t always an option for everyone as some people can’t afford to take 2 to 4 years away from their careers and go into debt for their education.
There are some pretty good pros and cons to each decision. I’d like to share my experiences with this decision.
Info About Me:
College
I completed one year of the Instrumentation and Control Technician program. I found it to be a highly valuable and enriching experience. It taught the fundamentals, and I felt it prepared me well. The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic made the second year of the Instrumentation and Control Technician program particularly demanding. I made the decision to leave the program and opted to gain practical job experience.
I started as a laborer at a mill hoping that I’d be able to work there until eventually a position would open up. This was a pretty difficult job, but it did get me familiar with the process and gave me experience that later helped me get an apprenticeship with that same company a year later. I am currently a 3rd year Instrumentation Apprentice and I’ve been loving it ever since.
While leaving college early allowed me to get a head start, it did prevent me from applying for a great internship at a government-owned power plant that was offered to second-year students. This opportunity would’ve greatly increased my career prospects.
Apprenticeship
Upon the start of my apprenticeship, I noticed it was a steep learning curve, and I believe it would’ve been a struggle to understand everything if I hadn’t previously learned the fundamentals. One day you will be calibrating a sensor on a 4-20 mA scale and the next you will be troubleshooting a control circuit, testing each wire and connection to discover why the feedback signal isn’t being sent back to the PLC.
That being said, I did find that there was a lot of information missed by the school system. School mostly focused on the technical side of Instrumentation, such as making loop diagrams, controller tuning, and creating simple electric circuits. This information wasn’t as useful in my day-to-day life as an apprentice. I found myself mostly working on construction projects, such as installing level sensors, load cells, and cameras, or doing weekly preventative maintenance calibrations on our Turbidity sensors or pH sensors.
Final Thoughts
While I do love the idea of jumping right into an apprenticeship and starting out getting paid to learn, I personally feel that it’s best to first go to school. Instrumentation is such a broad field, and it can quickly overwhelm you. If you do decide to go the apprenticeship route first, I would recommend taking the time to study the fundamentals.
Some books I would recommend for brushing up on the fundamentals include:
Instrumentation and Process Control by Franklyn W. Kirk, Thomas A. Weedon, and Philip Kirk
Instrument Engineers Handbook by Bela G. Liptak
I do not receive money for these links. I found that Scribd was the cheapest option to get ahold of this material instead of buying the books for hundreds of dollars on Amazon.
Finally I’d recommend checking out some of our Intro to Instrumentation articles such as Process Control and Analog Signals.
