Gotta brag about my kid a little, check this out.

My son is finishing up his Sr year of HS, and 2nd yr of the welding program at Vo-tech. He is the youngest of our 4 kids, and by far has been the most difficult. Graduation is in about 3 weeks, and we STILL aren't sure that they are actually going to let him graduate. But, the kid can weld. and, as it turns out, he's pretty artistic with it. He's brought home my wife and a few other women in his life, some of the usual welded steel flowers, a couple of robot looking things and a snowman, all out of scrap material. Before now, that's all we've been seeing.

He brought this home for me yesterday. Completely surprised me. He used the schools CNC Plasma cutter, found some graphics on the interwebs, converted them to PNG files and had to pixel cut truck graphic. Man, I almost cried.

It's 1/4" thick mild steel plate, about 2ft in diameter.

Awesome kid. He loves you and clearly admire you. Congrats.

That's awesome! Congrats.

ADKAmateur said:

Awesome kid. He loves you and clearly admire you. Congrats.

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See...now ya got me tearing up again.

I tried to get my son into wrenching, and fabrication. He just wasn't into it so I didn't push it. He's now a corrections officer.

That’s really awesome. I was a **** student and graduated by the skin of my teeth. But once in trade school I out shinned them all and a few years later while getting a degree in electronics pulled off top of the class as well.

Point is, maybe he’s found his interest and he obviously has a talent for it. Personally I think ya done good with him and he by you.

Brag all you want. I have a feeling he has a few more surprises in store once he finds his calling.

Very nice work, enjoy!

He doesn’t have to start college immediately. I say let him go to work with the plan to go again in a year or so. He can probably find a shop that will pay for his classes should they relate to his welding job. I taught adult education for a few years, blueprint reading for machine trades. I always added a session that included welding symbols and usually took the students on a “shop tour” of the high schools weld shop. I could show them their vertical milling machine, power shears and other machines having them bring their text books along so we could compare the prints to similar stuff in the shop.

I took several years to “season” after high school, and worked fabricating, welding, parts departments etc. before attending night classes for six years before getting my associates degree in mechanical engineering. Doing the grunt work he may find his calling, but I reached a salary cap that only an education would bump up. My employers paid for most of my college classes.

Nice plasma work and the computer skills to make it happen!

A lot of super smart people have trouble with ordinary things and appear lazy and dumb. But if you can get them into something that uses their natural talent, they will excel far above anyone else.

Sounds like he might have found his area of expertise.

It sounds as though your son is one who will find his own path in life, and excel once he settles into it.

College isn't for everyone, and those who are skilled in the trades can make an excellent living without shelling out the ridiculous cost of "higher" education.

I, too, was a lousy student as a kid. From day one, I was bored shitless in a classroom, eventually more interested in girls and cars, and couldn't see the relevance of most of what was being pushed at me to my life in general. Family problems had me fending for myself at age 16, and that didn't help with the scholastic situation. I couldn't be more certain that I was awarded a HS diploma merely because nobody cared enough to notice that I hadn't earned it, and I didn't cause trouble on the few days when I was actually present. They just pushed me out the other end of the mill, and I eventually went over there and picked up my diploma. I was happy to be done with it without having formally dropped out. After a few years of various miserable employment dead-ends as a young adult, I found myself enrolled in a technical school, and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. That cracked open the door to what turned into a pretty good career. I was fortunate to have a few good friends who never wrote me off as a failure and a lost cause. I will be forever in their debt.

I too was an unmotivated student, it took me 5 years to complete a 4 year High School program, I just barely got by and graduated in the lower third of my class.

30 years later I started college and earned a Bachelor’s Degree, with Honors in only two and a half years, while holding down a succession of full time jobs.

At 47 I had already learned what Women were and what Beer was. Because these distractions had been dealt with I was able to apply myself and graduate second in my class