Bogey take full advantage of that instructors offer.
I can't believe the class is wasting time teaching you how to make crap welds on improperly prepared material. Plus instructors should be willing to answer RELEVANT questions.
Oh I'm definitely taking him up on it.
The school is run through the State as a job-skills development / career placement initiative. They are geared toward teaching the bare minimum skills in the time they have in order to get you hired on to the shipyards, which have traditionally been the big employers.
We recently had to "declare" if we were going to test for the shipyard or not. If so, you spend the rest of the school practicing for that test. If not, you work on a slightly different program with a tiny bit more flexibility. However, their mindset is still that of what you'll be welding every day as a beginning welder in a shipyard. Here's what's killing me, out of 15 of us, only 3-4 want to go to the shipyard; the rest want to learn general fab and pipe.
Here's some examples of what I've been told in the past few weeks:
Me: can you show me how to run a downhill 6010
Instructor/s: we don't want you running 6010 downhill, you won't need to do that
Me: I've been running fillets on T-joints (inside corners), would it be okay to set up a corner joint to work on outside corner welds
Instructor/s: nah, pretty much all you'll be welding are "T"s and V-grooves
Me: can we work on some other fit-ups like lap joints or square butts (we only do V so far)
Them: nah, those aren't good joints to begin with and you won't need to be able to do those
We've even been told that as Welders it's not important for us to be good on cutting equipment, because the Fitters handle that.
I know I'm being pissy. This school is a great opportunity. I had to compete heavily for a slot and it's conducted free of charge through the State. The instructors are all highly experienced guys from the Yards who could be making big checks with a whip in their hands but they've chosen to teach at a State School instead. The equipment is top-notch and all they ask is that we not waste materials because it's tax-payer funded and they legitimately give a shit that we're not wasting what's granted to us.
For the young guys it's a huge opportunity (I'm the oldest guy in my class). It's run like an actual job with a time clock and zero tolerance for absence or tardiness. They keep a permanent record of every minute you miss to be shared with potential employers. So the "kids" are learning valuable skills aside from welding. For some of us of older guys it's a great way to learn/develop a new skill while still working during the day. The "disconnect" for me is from having attended and taught so many courses over the past 25 years or so, I've never run into such a predetermined limit on what you can learn.
Either way, I realize how many people applied and were passed over for me to get a slot and I am determined to complete the course with a perfect attendance record and get everything I can from it. I watch hours of instructional videos to fill in gaps, and donate my time to everyone I know who has a machine and a project to work on. I WILL get good at this, one way or another.