Veteran finds a successful career through career training program apprenticeship
In 2011, Amanda Gonzalez had just finished serving two years in the U.S. Army Reserve and was contemplating her next move. She knew she wanted to do something with electronics because she enjoyed working with her hands, but she had no background in the field. It was important to her to find a school where she could start learning from scratch and gain valuable experience. She found both of those things in El Camino College’s two-year program for electronics and computer hardware technology.
“Very few schools even had an electronics program,” Gonzalez says. “But I wanted to do something challenging and new. I like the idea of building something that’s bigger than yourself and seeing it come together. It’s a great feeling.”
“Many universities don’t provide the opportunities that El Camino College gave me.”
Amanda Gonzalez, El Camino College graduate
Gonzalez says her introduction to the electronics field was an easy transition, thanks to her teachers. They worked with her one-on-one in the classroom and taught through hands-on projects, rather than reading from a textbook. If students needed more time on a particular lesson, tutors were also available to help them after class. Gonzalez says the program gave her the foundation she needed to find a successful career in the industry.
“I’m more of a ‘show me how to do it’ learner, so the program at El Camino College was perfect for me,” Gonzalez says. “I was new to all of it, but they gave me all the attention and time I needed to get the full understanding of how everything works.”
Through the school’s career technical education (CTE) program, she landed an apprenticeship at Northrop Grumman, one of the largest global aerospace and defense technology companies in the world. Gonzalez says it was a once-in-alifetime opportunity.
“I learned all of the requirements and expectations for their technicians and the standards their employees uphold,” Gonzalez says. “They taught us the skills we needed to perform the job. It was a great experience for me.”
The apprenticeship was especially important to her because she was offered a job at Northrop Grumman after she graduated from El Camino College in 2013.
Today, she works as a mechanictechnician assembling electronic hardware for satellites.
Gonzalez says her life was changed by post-secondary education and she hopes more people utilize schools like El Camino College to learn marketable skills and find careers — especially the apprenticeship programs.
“Many universities don’t provide the opportunities that El Camino College gave me,” Gonzalez says. “I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the world and now I’m able to do that with my job.
There’s really no limit to how far you can go in life, you just have to find the right opportunities.
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Written by Mike Blount
| Regions | Classes |
|---|---|
| South Coast California | Careers in Business-Technology |
