WHSAD Senior, Oscar Bejarano, was recently accepted into the Solar One Green Construction training program. With his acceptance, Oscar will receive four days of hands-on training at the Solar One facility, an automatic paid internship in the green construction trades at the completion of training, free industry recognized training and OSHA certification, and job placement through March 2020. The following are some thoughts from Oscar about the opportunity.
The Solar One Green Construction program is both a training program and an internship opportunity. The point of the four days of training is to teach the students about safety and the many possible dangers on a construction site in varying fields (electrical, carpentry, plumbing etc.), and to weed out those who are not interested in construction and hard physical labor. The instructors there also give you a chance to practice hands-on work in both basic carpentry and electrical installation. After completing the four-day training, you are to meet up with whomever they direct you to talk about your long-term goals and which internship program would be best suited towards those goals.
If I were to speak about my experience at the Solar One training, there wasn’t a lot of new things I learned, which is thanks to my education at a high school centered around architecture and design, along with the hands-on training I received at COOP Tech and the few years of field experience I’ve had. That’s not to say it was a complete waste of time. There were a few things I learned that I hadn’t known prior to my training at Solar One. The program is far more beneficial to people who are more green and less experienced than I am, especially if you’re looking for a career in construction. But at the end of the day, I do think it was worth it, especially since it’ll provide a job for the summer, and better yet, it helps you connect with people who could give you recommendations and help you further your construction career if that’s what you’re interested in.