Start prepping NOW for your dream job or work-anywhere trade skills!

Hone Your Welding Skills While Preparing for Certification

In our current digital-dominant world, there’s something particularly appealing about someone who still makes a living with their hands. Do you have more of an analog, old-school soul? Do you enjoy working with your hands to build machines that last lifetimes? Are you captivated by welding, fabrication and metalwork? If this sounds like you, then a career in the welding industry could play right into your hands. Take a truly hands-on, deep dive into the time-tested, world-building realms of welding, fabrication and materials joining through this two-year pathway. If you want to break into this industry and learn what it takes to earn your living as a certified welder, this program will surely get you fired up.

What You'll Learn

From 9th grade upward, enroll in A-G approved courses to start preparing for your skilled trade career. Classes include:

  • CTE Concentrator Welding & Fabrication (Year 1)
  • CTE Capstone Welding & Fabrication (Year 2)

What You’ll Do

Take what you’re learning in the classroom into the real world and experience for yourself all that awaits you in the time-honored and always-needed skilled trade industry. Hands-on, immersive experiences include:

  • Intensive welding work
  • Professional guest speakers
  • CNC Machining
  • 3D Modeling/Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
  • Advanced Manufacturing
  • Blueprint reading
  • Field trips to local industry partners and colleges to explore potential career paths

Who You Can Be

Kickstart your career path with top-tier academic instruction and industry-leader insights. The Welding program prepares you for potential careers such as:

  • Certified Welder
  • Certified Union Welder
  • Product Designer
  • Aerospace Welder
  • Welding Engineer
  • Underwater Welder
  • Robotic Welding Technician

Industry Average Wages: $54,000–$125,000

Projected Industry Growth: 12-16%

What You Need to Know

VUSD’s Welding CTE pathway prepares students for successful careers in the skilled trade industry, with a particular focus on welding and fabrication work. Students (grades 9 and up) learn vital skills such as tool safety, project planning, project construction and project finishing. The program is based at Buena High School and consists of two sequenced year-long courses, a concentrator followed by a capstone.

Students learn and sharpen skills with extensive welding experience under high-level direction. Students also benefit from respected guest speakers within the skilled trade industry, as well as partnerships with Tri-Counties Sheet Metal Workers' JATC training facility and renowned local businesses like Haas Automation, Clark Fabrication, Elite Plating, Royal Hydraulics and C&R Molds. Students emerge from this truly hands-on program with enhanced skills, confidence, direct access to a powerful career pathway.

Next Steps

Once you have gained the skills and knowledge in this pathway, there are many options for your next steps after high school - some you can even begin pursuing before you graduate!

1 Year

Welding Technology, Certificate - Ventura College

Industrial Technology and Fabrication, Certificate - Ventura College 

2 Year

Welding Technology, Associate in Science - Ventura College

4 Year

Bachelor of Science, Industrial Engineering - California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Bachelor of Science, Manufacturing Engineering - California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo