CathInfo.com

I am finishing up a 4-week Pre-Apprentice Electrician course. It is free (for me) and I learned a lot of useful material (book learning as well as hands-on) that will make me much more useful as an Electrician Apprentice.

The program in question is also VERY concerned with getting all their students placed in paying jobs afterwards.

Becoming a Journeyman Electrician is going to be a lot of study and work, but I'm hoping to build a career that is more durable, transferable, and objective as opposed to relying completely on luck, people skills, connections, geographical location, resume wizardry and tactics, etc. And also a career that isn't notoriously ageist. People don't blink, or even think twice when a man with grey hair shows up to do electrical work. You can't say the same for software development.

It takes 4 years (8,000 hours) working as an Electrician Apprentice to qualify to take the Journeyman test. There is also a lot of book knowledge, which can be gained in various ways.
Generally, you get a raise every 6 months (1000 hours) as you become more skilled, knowledgeable, and generally useful.

I have been hired by a local Electrical contractor, and my first day is the Monday after my "graduation" from this 4-week program.

Here's the thing: 100% of Electrical Apprentices need to have their own tools. It's not just nice to have, common, or anything like that. No, it's literally 100%. Apprentices are expected to provide their own tools.

So I have added a bunch of the recommended Electrician tools to my Amazon wishlist, in case anyone on CathInfo would like to support me in that way.

https://www.cathinfo.com/a.htm

I'm a bit nervous about the huge pay cut, but other than that I'm optimistic and look forward to building up and getting out of the career hole I'm currently in. I look forward to being employed again.  For the last 25 months, I was only employed for 4 of them.


I haven't taken a single selfie or picture of my training (showing me doing electrician stuff), but A) I intend to remedy this sometime this week, and B) the organization has been taking pictures, and maybe I can get some of those after they post them.
My class is the first one for my specific area.
So... pictures forthcoming!

That's very brave of you, Matthew. 
May God bless you and your family.