As a parent, you may be wanting to know what you can do to help your child get accepted into this apprenticeship program. Or, you may simply want to learn more because you’ve just heard of Apprenticeship 2000. We’re excited to have you here! Hopefully, you’ll find this page very useful and informative.
This program is designed to provide career opportunities to highly motivated high school students and provide the Apprenticeship 2000 partner companies with a highly technically skilled workforce. We use this platform to train our own technicians. Upon graduation from our apprenticeship program, the apprentice receives a college degree, a journeyman’s card from the state of North Carolina and a job offer from the partner company that trained them. The job offer comes with a guaranteed minimum annual salary of $37K+. And, since the partner companies foot the bill, this all comes with no college debt to the apprentice. Our apprentices earn while they learn! Not only do the apprentices graduate with no college debt, but during their four years of training, most will even earn over $90k!
Apprenticeship 2000 searches for self-motivated high school students with strong math and engineering skills. Our search begins with recruiting. Beginning around October of each year, we make contact with local high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) Guidance Counselors. The CTE counselors invite us to schools to present information about our program to students. Communication through the CTE counselors may be the first time students learn about apprenticeship opportunities.
For students who are interested, registering is the first step to joining our program. This may be done in person during a presentation at their school or they may complete an online interest form through our website. Registration is open to students who are high school juniors and seniors during our registration period. By registering, a student is letting us know they are interested in joining the program. Parents, please refrain from registering your child. That could indicate that your child may not actually be interested in our program. If your child is interested in our program, they will be motivated enough to register themselves. If they register and qualify, we will invite them and their parents to an open house. Our open houses are by invitation only and will take place in January each year.
At our open house, students and parents are presented with more information about our program, our partnership, and our selection process. After the presentation, there is a question and answer session and a tour of our facilities. Then, qualified students that would like to participate are offered the opportunity to join in an orientation session. An orientation session is the next step our selection process.
The partner companies assign students to the orientations. Each orientation session is a multiple day event that is designed to introduce the student to technical trades and spark interest. Each orientation session is four evenings at a partner company, 4 hours each evening. Students are not paid to attend an orientation. The students will have hands-on tasks and written tests. Also, the students will write a report about their experience each evening. During the orientations, we encourage you to follow up with your child daily to see what they may have learned. Students are also asked to provide college placement test results from CPCC should they desire to proceed.
The last phase of the selection process is our paid summer pre-apprenticeship period. This is a six-week trial period starting mid-June with a week-long break for July 4th. Here, students get involved with more in-depth tasks and studies. During this time, the students will also attend college. The college classes are usually two days a week at CPCC’s central campus. The students will go to the college instead of the partner company those days. At this stage you can keep encouraging your child to put forth their best effort. The best performers will be selected to continue. Our summer trial period is for serious candidates only.
Both the orientation and summer pre-apprenticeship periods work much like an extended job interview. Both are by invitation only and are reserved only for the students. Parents, our orientations and pre-apprenticeship periods are for students only, however, there are things you can do to help your child. Both math and writing skills will be important during this time. Helping your child to brush up on these before the process begins will aid in your child’s success. We encourage you to follow up with your child to see what they may have learned at any point during the selection process. We encourage you to discuss with your child their view of the process and the apprenticeship program. Their success is dependent on their willingness and their motivation.
At all stages, we respectfully ask you as a parent to try to refrain from pushing your child into this program. With the best of intentions, students who do not really want to participate in our program can easily be spurred on to participate by excited parents. This may result in undesired stresses placed upon the student. Encourage them to make the choice on their own and encourage their progress along the way. Please remember our goal is to work with self-motivated students that have an interest in skilled technical trades and want to join us. And you can help by supporting and encouraging your child’s progress through the program.
