Charles Machado
English 11
05-09-07
Career Paper
Carpentry, a career in which you could do lots of different things, and watch your creation comes together. You could work for a union, work for someone you might know, or maybe even start your own business and just become your own boss. But everything is possible with patience, you cant just start away from college by creating your own business your going to need some previous knowledge on how to run things, and plus your going to need to know people that would be interested in your services.
Salary wise it will all depend on what you’re working on, and how big of a project it is. You’re not going to get the same profit from building a shed than building a house. If you might be working for a union the starting salary might be around $17-$18 /hour. The regular earning could change depending on the weather, because carpenters usually lose work during the cold seasons. Work conditions could be cold and brick or it could be hot and very sunny. But everything is worth it at the end; you get to see your project complete and you also get paid. The good thing about being a carpenter is that you could also help yourself by doing your own work around the house without having to pay somebody to do it, and have friends see your work so in the future they would call or refer you to their friends. Most of the business comes from how many people you know and how good of a job you do, because if you leave something not well done, well there’s goes your money. So whenever you might be working on something, make sure you do
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your best possible work, thus people giving other jobs in the future. Your work all depends on you, so don’t mess it up.
College wise, it isn’t necessary to become a carpenter, but it definitely could be really helpful. To become a carpenter, you’re going to need to know math most importantly because you will be dealing with numbers throughout your job and fractions etc. My choice, would be a school of technology which allows you to go hands-on, not just read about it in textbooks, and plus for a degree wise, there many out there for carpenters, you just have to choose the right one and go with it. There certificates which are helpful in union companies, so you can become a contracted carpenter and not just a laborer who helps around. In my case I’m thinking about getting some hands-on work first so I have the basics down, and then might go to college to catch up on my math and learn new techniques and new machines out there that are invented to make jobs easier. It will be up top you to decide on what exactly you plan on doing, if you would like to start your own business, not only will you have to know about carpentry but also business management, wouldn’t want your business to fall.
Becoming a carpenter could take you too many other jobs, such as architecture. Architecture is planning the building and creating it without having to do much of the hard work outside, but still have to know what materials your going to need and how much of it. Of course, architects make more money than a regular carpenter might make, but it is also a hard job to do, wouldn’t want to mess up a calculation and then making the rest of the project come out wrong, carpenters are just instructed on what to do and they
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do it with the information the architect gives them. Some cases architects are also carpenters and do their own work, which is double the work, but double the money.
If you would like more information on carpentry, you could always look up books, my favorite would be Careers without College: Building written by Peggy Schmidt, the developer of the series. Or just ask any carpenter you might know, and let them know you’re interested in becoming a future carpenter and if they could give you pointers or maybe even a job as their apprentice.
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