Student Experience: Bruce Parramore

“I was working as a truck driver when I took my first Welding course. I had gotten interested in welding when I built a go-cart as a home project and had decided I’d like to learn how to weld better. But after I took that first welding class — after just four months — I had learned enough that I was able to get a job in my company’s welding department. Now I’m a welder instead of a truck driver. 

“What I like about welding is that you get the chance to create something, and because it’s metal it lasts just about forever. It’s also really fun, and now I work on a lot of home projects I would never have been able to do before. 

“Welding is also like a jigsaw puzzle. You have to figure out what you’re going to do and put it together right before you weld it. There’s a lot of fabrication to the whole process. 

“The Welding instructors in the program are great. If you’ve got a problem, they’ll come show you how to fix it and get it right. I was working on a project that I couldn’t make work, and Phil Suderman came over to help me figure it out. The next thing you know, I had it down like science. If you see someone do something who knows how to do it right, you’re going to be able to get it down too. 

“If you’re doing something you like and can make a decent living at it, you can’t beat that.”

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