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[00:00:00] Eoghan: All the options were welding, and plumbing, and electrical, and there was some iron workers in there, just general construction workers. I looked at all of that, and what really stood out to me was electrical work. I don’t really know what drew me to it, but, I don’t know, I knew I did not want to work with poop, and I know I did not want to work in a hot attic. I think with those two decisions, I came to electrical as the place I need to be.

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[00:00:36] Gretchen Roe: Good afternoon, everyone. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show, and I’m so excited to launch this Career Connection series. I’ve invited my first victim, no, I should say guest, my son Eoghan. He’s been voluntold to do this, and actually he was a willing participant. We’re going to have a conversation today about choosing a path that’s different than a traditional high school to college experience. Eoghan’s going to talk to you about that, and then we’re going to give you some background as to why it has been important to him to pursue this direction, and then what you might see in it for your own students as we progress. Eoghan, how about introducing yourself?

[00:01:23] Eoghan: Hi, y’all. My name’s Eoghan Roe. I’m 19 years old. I’ve been working as an electrician’s apprentice for almost the past two years. I’m a very go, go, go kind of person. I’m very active. I skateboard, I ski, I rock climb, I hike, I backpack. I do everything I can. I like to be outside. It’s nice. I live in a good area to be outside.

[00:01:48] Gretchen: If Eoghan is not at work or skateboarding with his friends, he’s usually out on a mountainside hiking with his brother. I have to say I’m really proud of him. Eoghan was homeschooled to middle school and then went to public high school. We made that choice for Eoghan because I travel so much in my role with Demme Learning. Eoghan and my husband get along famously, but if academics were involved, somebody would probably be in trouble. It was easier for him to be able to take this path forward.

Eoghan, what I’d like you to talk about now is the beginning of your pursuit to change from a college decision because you had been intent on college for a number of years, and then that changed. Can you talk a little bit about that mindset shift?

[00:02:42] Eoghan: Yes. One of my biggest drives for college was I wanted to swim at the collegiate level. I had been swimming all four years of high school. I swam when I was a kid, and during my sophomore year, I really loved it. As time kept going on, I realized that I did not want to take that love and that passion and basically turn it into a job. I felt like swimming on the collegiate level that you’re an athlete student. Swim is your entire life. That just– I did not want to turn my life into swim.

I felt like with the idea of me not wanting to go to college or not wanting to go to swim in college, I didn’t want to go to college either. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to go and spend a bunch of money in college and still not know what I wanted to do.

[00:03:39] Gretchen: I think that’s probably a wise decision. One of the things that happened for us as a family is we had a lot of conversations about that. What different kinds of paths could you go forward in? Because like you said, we weren’t going to let you sit around and just be a gamer. Talk a little bit about where you found an idea and how that was presented to you, how your dad presented that.

[00:04:06] Eoghan: My dad actually just sent me a video on trades, different trades that I should look into. All the options were welding and plumbing and electrical, and there was some iron workers in there, just like general construction workers. I looked at all of that, and what really stood out to me was electrical work. I don’t really know what drew me to it, but I don’t know, I knew I did not want to work with poop and I know I did not want to work in a hot attic. I think, with those two decisions, I came to electrical as the place I need to be.

I went to public high school, and I had the ability to reach out to an internship coordinator through my high school. I told him I want to look into the electrical trade. He went out and found a company locally and set up an internship for me. For about a year, I interned for this company, and I sat in the office. I got to see the office side of everything. I didn’t really go to as many jobs because I wasn’t 18. They don’t allow people under 18 to go out to the jobs because it’s an insurance and a liability thing. I sat in the office, but I got to see the back end. The work that you usually don’t see in electrical.

I think that helped a lot, that helped to solidify my decision. I liked the people at the company. I didn’t really get the field experience. I felt like I was missing out on something. That drove me to see what I was missing out on.

[00:05:51] Gretchen: When you graduated, then what had to happen?

[00:05:55] Eoghan: When I graduated, I was still 17. I had to wait until I was 18 to start working. Again, it’s an insurance and a liability thing. I turned 18, they told me to reach out to them whenever I did. I did, and I reached out to them, and it was a fight to get hired. I had to reach out to the hiring coordinator multiple times. I went into his office and talked to him, I wanted that job. I made sure I was going to get that job.

[00:06:28] Gretchen: I think a little bit of that is your own inner tenacity to create that. One of the things I want parents or young adults who are watching this webinar to understand is it wasn’t handed to you. You had to go pursue it with some degree of persistence in order to get them to hire you on. Correct?

[00:06:48] Eoghan: Yes, ma’am.

[00:06:51] Gretchen: Tell me what a typical day looks like for you.

[00:06:55] Eoghan: My company, we work four tens. I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I still get my 40 hours in a week. I start at 7:00 in the morning, and I usually end around 5:00, 5:30-ish, depends on the day that we’re doing. Usually, I will either show up to the shop, and we’ll get the materials that we need for that day, or I’ll go straight to the job and just immediately start working. I really like the electrical trade because I feel like every day is a little bit different. To an extent, you are doing the same thing over and over again, but it’s just it’s a little bit different. I like that little bit of a difference. That helps a lot. It really depends.

For my first year as a working electrician, I was in service. I was going to people’s houses and fixing their receptacle that doesn’t work, their ceiling fan that isn’t ceiling-fanning. I go and I repair that for them. I did that for a year. That was interesting. Back in September, I switched over to custom homes. That’s new construction. You’re working in a house that nobody has ever lived in. I enjoyed that a lot more. I enjoyed the pace. I was always doing something. I consistently had work, and it made time go by a lot faster.

In the electrical process, or in the construction process in general, you have two stages. You have the rough-in process, and then you have the trim-out process. The rough-in process is the house does not have any drywall. It has sheathing on the outside, but it’s just all bare studs all throughout the house. That’s when the plumbers and the HVAC and the electricians come in, and they run all their wires and all their water lines and all their HVAC lines. I did that for about two months. I enjoyed that. I felt like it was almost like a puzzle. You had to get from point A to point B, and you had to find the most efficient way to run it from point A to point B. It was like a, I don’t know, I made it into a little game in my head that made my job a lot more fun. Then on the trim-out process, that’s where you’re putting in the light fixtures themselves. You’re putting in the switches and the outlets and everything would form the house at the end.

[00:09:42] Gretchen: Tell me, you have worked now with at least three different electricians, and each experience has been a different one. What have you learned in that process as far as working with people, as far as being flexible and those kinds of things?

[00:10:00] Eoghan: Everybody looks at a problem completely differently. I don’t think the same electrician would look at a problem and fix it the same way. Each person has their own special outlook and how they handle these problems. I’m the apprentice. I’m the one that doesn’t know anything, and they’re the ones that know everything. Every time you move to a different electrician, they have a new perspective. They have something new they can teach you. I love working with new people because you learn something different.

[00:10:41] Gretchen: Exactly. Now, you don’t rest on your laurels on Fridays. Explain how your company also sows into your future as far as your college classes.

[00:10:53] Eoghan: Yes, so my company is paired up with my local community college. Every Friday, I go to the community college, and my company pays me to go take classes. These classes vary from class to class. Last weekend’s class was on bending conduit. That’s a very hands-on and in-the-lab process. I’ve been doing this schooling since September, and I don’t know, I think it has been invaluable. I feel like the way I understand the electrical trade and just electricity in general is completely different. It just changed my perspective on it.

[00:11:40] Gretchen: Sure. How do you use math in your daily work?

[00:11:46] Eoghan: All the time, mainly fractions. Fractions are my kumdala. I use fractions almost every second of the day. The best example I can give is you have a light fixture, and the light fixture is supposed to be– The bottom of the light fixture is supposed to be 43 inches off the vanity. Then, you have to put the center of the light probably, I don’t know, two and a half inches above that. Then you, that’s where you have to put your box. You have to do a bunch of small minuscule calculations to figure out where you need to put your box so that the homeowner is happy with where you put their light.

[00:12:28] Gretchen: Oh, okay. That makes sense. What advice would you give to someone who is interested in pursuing this kind of a trade?

[00:12:37] Eoghan: You’re not going to learn everything. There’s so much to learn. When I first started, I wanted to know everything right away. I wanted to basically run my own jobs. As time kept going on, I realized the less and the less I know. If you go into the electrical trade knowing that you do not know a thing, every day when you step onto the job site, know that you’re going to be learning something different. You’re going to be doing something different. I think the open-mindedness of there’s always something different, I think that is the most beneficial thing you can take into the electrical trade because I feel I am still teaching the 50 year old man that I work with.

I’m still teaching him things once a week, not every day, but I still teach him new things once a week. You’re always going to be learning. There’s never a time that you’re not. Us as electricians, we rely on the National Electric Code, and they switch out the National Electric Code every three years. That doesn’t mean you have to learn a completely new code. That means you just have to learn new sections. They revised sections in it, and you have to relearn those. There’s always something you can learn.

[00:14:06] Gretchen: Absolutely. As the technology evolves, I imagine it gets ever more complicated to try and figure that out. Oh, and I want to circle back to the tenacity you had to display in order to go from a non-paid apprentice to a hired employee. I want you to talk a little bit about that because sometimes that’s something that’s missing in someone who’s 17 or 18 years old. We haven’t had the experience of having to really continue to come back at someone until they say yes. Talk a little bit about that. How did you feel in that process?

[00:14:49] Eoghan: I looked at it as applying to college, basically. I wanted to, this is my college experience. I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. You have to put in the work. If you want to reap the rewards, you have to put in the work. I knew that. I knew that just like applying for college, you have to take these tests, you have to get referrals, you have to reach out to multiple different colleges. I took that same philosophy and just applied it to my job. If you have that passion and that drive, then it will drive you to what you want.

[00:15:42] Gretchen: Okay. Did you always enjoy math, or did you find your way into enjoying the math you use on your job after you began this apprenticeship?

[00:15:54] Eoghan: I’ve never really been the biggest fan of math. It’s always been a battle for me. I do love using math in my job. I don’t know. It makes me feel smart being able to do out all my math. Then I go to apply it onto a light fixture, and it works. I get to see my thought process, and then I get to put that into the real world. It’s very satisfying. There is no other feeling than working on a light, and you finish working on that light, and you go to flip it on, and it actually works. That is the best feeling in my– I have felt working.

[00:16:38] Gretchen: A little bit of instant gratification there, right?

[00:16:41] Eoghan: Yes. 100%

[00:16:42] Gretchen: With a lot of effort in front of it. In the last five minutes, what would be the last piece of advice or the closing words you would have for our audience today?

[00:16:53] Eoghan: I don’t think electricity has to be your end all be all. I think that not even just electricity, I think the trades are one of the best stepping stones you can take if you don’t know what you want to do. If you don’t want to go to college for a very specialized field like medical or engineering or something like that, it may not even be worth your time to go to college. It might be more worth your time to learn a skill. If you learn this skill and it’s not the skill you want to learn, then you have the option to go back to college. Then you have this skill. You already have something you can rely on.

Like I said earlier, you have this safety net that you can fall back on. Nobody can ever take the knowledge that you gain from a trade. They cannot take that away. You will always have that in the back of your pocket.

[00:17:51] Gretchen: I think that’s really wise advice for anybody at any age, not just someone at the age of 19. I want to thank you for spending this time. I want to thank you for being a willing, voluntold volunteer to have this first conversation with me. I really appreciated it. I’ve learned things that I didn’t know, and you and I live in the same house. It’s been a pretty fascinating afternoon. I want to thank our audience for joining us, for trusting us to come into your living room. I’m looking forward to continuing these conversations throughout the summer.

Periodically, you’ll see another Career Connections conversation come up in our scheduling, and I hope you’ll join us for all of them because I think you’ll find them really fascinating. Eoghan, thanks for your time today. I really appreciate it. Audience members, thank you all for participating as well by trusting us to share this hour with you.

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[00:18:45] Announcer: Thanks again for joining us. We’re glad to be a part of your educational community. You can help us grow our community even more by rating, reviewing, and subscribing to the show wherever you may be hearing this. Don’t forget that you can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show or on our YouTube channel. We’ll see you again next time. Until then, keep building strong foundations for lifelong learning.

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