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.
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