First Place Manufacturing Essay
Milton P. Higgins Technical Excellence Award 2004
Cody Taylor, Assabet Valley Technical High School
I am a junior at Assabet Valley and am in the shop Metal Fabrication. The way I have been taught to work not only by my teacher but also by the other students will help me deal with working in the real world. I am preparing myself for college by learning the properties and strength of metals. I am planning on mastering in Metallurgy and what I am learning gives me a head start. I treat every project I do like I am in the real world and some one is depending on me to get it done.
Metal Fab has taught me to be reliable by the way my teacher is always driving me to out do myself. My teacher depends on me to get a job done at a certain time I have to get it done. It makes me more desirable if I can get everything I need to do done and done right. Another thing that makes me dependable is that when I am working with another student and I need to hold something heavy or tack a piece of metal for them they need to be able to count on me to do it right.
The attitude that I have gotten from my shop is to always do everything the best that I can, never do a bad job on something for myself or other people, and if I don’t like what I have to do just do it and don’t complain. I also have to treat customers with respect and if I don’t they might not have me do the job. If the attitude I have towards my friends and teachers isn’t good I won’t have a good day or week for that matter. Everything is based on the way your treat everyone else.
My school has taught me to calculate distance, triangulation, decimals, fractions, layout, and many more “tools of the trade” that we have to know to be proficient. I also had to learn rough calculation so that I can cut metal to different sizes for projects that don’t have to be completely perfect. We have to have very good communication in a shop as dangerous as Metal Fabrication. If someone is using a torch on one side of the shop and there is a gas leak at the other side we have to be able to let each other know very quickly or else we can get seriously injured.
Metal Fabrication has trained me to be able to go out into the working world and get a job with ease. I have skills that most people in the trade haven’t learned in twenty years of work.
In conclusion Metal Fab has set me up with a trade that even if I don’t use I can still fall back on it whenever I need it. It is a choice in my life that I don’t regret making.
