Work Experience is the Key.

Now if you can read and understand what is written here, you have an huge advantage over your peers who cannot read or write and have to depend on their years of experience to accomplish a given job.  For an apprentice, you should respect those who have these invaluable experience that no Universities or Colleges can teach. They have their own ingenious ways of dealing with things that even Harvard graduates will find difficult to solve.

I have personally seen highly qualified Engineers taking tips from very experienced pipe fitters on how to make sure that the pipes do not go out of alignment when it is being welded. It was not something that was taught in school. The method might be crude, but the results were incredible.

Watching these experienced people go about their jobs is a pleasure. Their clockwork precision, their fluid movements, their handling of tools makes the job seems so easy. The surprising thing is, they can even read technical drawings without knowing a word of English. They learned by memorizing which alphabets stands for what and by looking at them for years and years until they know which symbols stands for what by heart. A fresh graduate who has no prior experience in reading technical drawings will have to spend hours trying to make out which is which.

Now if you coupled that experience with a reasonable knowledge of the written language, wouldn’t it take you a step further? So don’t be afraid to learn. You might not be fortunate enough to do it in the Air Conditioned classrooms, but you can certainly learn more than them under the hot sun.

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