Any red seal fabricators here?

[The Codfather]

Originally Posted by spit.fire

Have any of you challenged any of the years? I'm looking into challenging my first year to get the ball rolling a little faster but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not

Heres my opinion, while I'll agree with what the others said, I would like to explain why I would not challenge. I am a line instructor at NAIT and have been for the last 10 years. I've seen my share of apprentices over that time, and saying that, I can safely say that the majority that do challenge any specific year, do seem to struggle a bit further down the line.
Could you challenge and pass? Im sure you could, if you have the motivation and the ability to get some outside help, Im sure it would be quite easy. The problem that I see with this is, some of the basic skill and theories that we teach in the earlier years will not be learnt, or learnt properly. There are a lot of good journeymen out there, people that have been out in the field for years and could give you all sorts of tips and tricks on how to get things accomplished.
The problem is, those good journeyman are often hard on apprentices, they need/want an apprentice that knows what to do and when. Now I'll agree that it is/was our job to help train, but if I got a green second year with me, he had better know what a second year is supposed to. If he didn't, I had no use for him.
Im a multi-ticketed journeyman, and I thought I was good at what I did. But it wasn't until I started instructing for NAIT, that I realized there was a lot more to the trade than what I knew or in some cases thought I knew. This is the bottom line. There are some things you just cannot learn in the field, and this is what the trade schools are for. You will learn a lot from a good instructor.
Hope what I said makes sense.
Thanks,
Bob