Welding course caters to all comers

Students at a recent Introduction to Welding (NONAC03024) at TAFE Queensland’s Alexandra Hills campus have raved about their experience gaining basic skills in welding from their industry-expert teacher, with participants ranging from retired hobbyists to prospective apprentices.

The entry level course runs for three days on campus, with participants learning the basics of three core welding styles and spending most of the course practicing their newly acquired practical skills. TAFE Queensland’s industry-standard facilities allow each student to command their own welding bay and hone their skills with the support of their expert teacher.

20-year-old local Wayne Van Den Brink knew he wanted to take up a trade, and with an interest in car modifications he was considering applying for boilermaking apprenticeships to work in the vehicle fabrications industry. Completing the Introduction to Welding to see if he liked the work that would dominate his days in the industry and gain some basic skills, Wayne said he got exactly what he needed from the three-day experience.

“I’m doing it because I want to be an apprentice, I just wanted to give it a crack and see if I like it or not, which so far I am,” Mr Van Den Brink said.

Wayne enrolled to start his training journey.

“I’ve never done any welding before this week, but I feel like I’m doing alright now after the course, I’ve come along a lot in three days … The teacher is very informative and he’s passing his years of experience onto us which is great.”

“I’ll definitely be applying for apprenticeships after this. I want to do vehicle fabrications so hopefully I can get into a job doing that now,” he said.

Meanwhile, his classmate Jarred Anthoney is on the brink of completing a carpentry apprenticeship at TAFE Queensland and decided to take on the Introduction to Welding to extend his skills and become a sought-after, multi-talented tradesperson in the construction industry.

“I’m doing it to progress my career, I’m in the fourth year of my apprenticeship in carpentry and this is a good skill to have – being able to work with steel, metal, and different types of alloys,” Mr Anthoney said.

Jarred is broadening the skills he possseses.

“It’s been really good, we’ve done stick, mig, and tig welding. I’ve welded lots of different pieces of metal and in such a short time period I feel like I’m quite competent now in being able to weld brackets, cleats, and simple things like that, so it’s a very good course.”

“I’ll definitely be doing more practice; this is really about the fundamentals and understanding the principles of what you’re doing. Like the teacher was saying, this is a skill, and you need to do it quite regularly to get good at it. So I’ll be making sure I do that at work a lot more in the future,” he said.

Retiree Malcom Macdonald enrolled in the course to gain the basic skills he will need to assist in his hobby: restoring his 1970’s project car.

“I came to the course to learn for my hobby. I’m a fully retired DVA pensioner and I just wanted to learn a bit of welding so I can do it at home and run my hobby, I’ve got a Datsun 260z in my shed which has been there for ten years, and I need to patch it up,” Mr Macdonald said.

Malcolm is learning skills to work on his hobby.

“The teacher’s got a lot of tips and tricks that he’s been talking about. He’s very approachable and easy to listen to and he’s got a very good teaching technique,” he said.

Business Manager at TAFE Queensland’s Alexandra Hills campus Andrew Hocking said the Introduction to Welding is a course for everybody, with participants varying greatly in their reason for attending but always taking away valuable skills from the experience.

“This is a great course for so many different students, it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, male or female, a career starter or fully retired, if you want to learn the basics of welding then you will get what you need from this course,” Mr Hocking said.

“TAFE Queensland provides quality training in more than 500 qualifications and also in Non-Accredited Short Courses like the Introduction to Welding, and there are so many different skills that can be learned at your local campus to help you in your career, hobbies, or life in general,” he said.