How I Decided To Become A Master Electrician Part 5

I remember starting my first day of school. I felt prepared for my next goal. We had a lot of electrical theory to start class. My first few teachers taught us about the different phases of the trade. After hearing about all of the things that a master electrician can do, I was sold on becoming one. We started doing more work with learning how to use our tools as the months went on. I started learning about different sizes of electrical wiring, the types of devices that are used each day in switches and receptacles. There was so much information I needed to process each day.

I always tried to stay physically fit throughout life. I loved running long distances. One of my goals has always been to run in a half marathon. I`ve trained for years but have yet to run one. I also have a love for playing basketball. I would always go to the gym to play full court basketball. My routine after school was to head straight to the gym to run on the treadmill, lift weights, and play about 5 games of basketball. My body would hurt at times, but I felt strong by the time I would make it to the gym the next day. I was playing basketball one day after school in the late summer of 2013. We were dominating a game. I ended up getting injured while playing. It took 15 stitches to close the cut. I ended up missing school and work after that. I decided at that time that I would stop playing basketball as hard I had been playing. I loved playing the game. I didn`t think that I would be able to afford missing work with my future career. I was in the best shape of my life at that time. If I could go back to that time, I would`ve kept playing.

I learned that you have to use your mind and your body as an electrician. We are constantly thinking about how to get a job done. There are multiple ways to do the same job. The more knowledge you have, the quicker and safer things will be. There are jobs that I can remember doing right out of school that would take me 40 minutes to do. I can now do those things multiple times in under 10 minutes. The things that started to change by not being as physically fit are the areas that you have to work in. We have crawl spaces under both single family homes and mobile homes that we have to access. We have all different types of attic spaces. These can be very hot. I`ve worked in an attic that was so small that I had to crawl military style through it to reach an attic fan that needed replacing. Having extra weight is not an advantage in these situations. I was always taught to figure out a way to get the job done. I would tell any apprentice to keep working out maintain your strength and energy level.

I kept going along through this one year program. The one thing that I started to notice was how the class size got smaller after each month. We had lots of people to start this program. Some of the people left the program for multiple reasons. Some people just couldn`t wait to start making money in a trade. I remember another classmate decided to become a barber. Everyone has different reasons why they can or can`t keep working towards and goal. There was only about 8 of us by the time we got to the final month of class. This final month brought a lot of hope and challenges.