Are You Too Old To Become An Apprentice Electrician?

what's going on you guys my name is stephen and today we're going to talk about whether or not you're too old to become an apprentice all right well hey you guys like i said my name is steven and the entire purpose of this channel if you haven't checked it out yet is to really be a resource for you if you are interested in becoming an apprentice electrician now i make videos talking about everything that you would need to know if this is a career that you want to pursue but i also spent a lot of time answering questions that you guys leave me down in the comment section and one question that you guys have asked me quite a bit recently and that's why i'm making this video is am i too old to become an apprentice electrician so let's get into this so the short answer to this question is no you're probably not too old but stick around and i'm going to explain why so i want to start off by giving you guys some statistics now the average age of an electrician in the united states is 41 years old in the average age of a new apprentice a first-year apprentice electrician is 29 years old now those ages those were just averages like i said meaning that you're going to have plenty of electricians that are younger than 41 like in their 20s or 30s and you're also going to have plenty of electricians that are in their 50s and really some even in their 60s that's just the average and what i mean when i say electrician is i mean somebody that's already gone through the apprenticeship and they have their journeyman's license and again that's going to be the same thing with 29 being the average age of a first year apprentice that's just the middle of the road so there's going to be tons of apprentices that are quite a bit younger than 29 and there's also going to be tons of apprentices that are quite a bit older than 29. now most apprenticeships are going to last anywhere between four and five years it really just depends on where you live but what that means is that if you start your apprenticeship by age 36 then you are most likely going to be done by the time that you're 41 years old which might feel kind of late in your life to start your career as a journeyman electrician but it's really not like we discussed already that's the average age of an electrician in the united states now some of you guys are watching this video right now and you're thinking to yourself man i wish i could have started my apprenticeship when i was 36 but i'm in my 40s or my 50s or even in my 60s and you're wondering what about me is it too late for me just off the top of my head i can think of plenty of apprentices who started their apprenticeship in their 40s and you know what they were fantastic apprentices it's really not uncommon at all you see it all the time and nobody even thinks anything of it it's just it's that common and i also know plenty of guys who started their apprenticeship in their 50s and at this point they are fantastic electricians and you would think that they had been doing this their whole lives so i actually heard about a guy here at ibew local 48 who basically he was a retired firefighter he worked a whole career as a firefighter and by the time that he was 60 years old for whatever reason why i don't know all the details but he wanted to apply for our apprenticeship and so he did he applied for apprenticeship at 60 years old and he actually went through the whole thing completed his apprenticeship got his license and now he's a journeyman electrician i will say that it's definitely not as common to see people applying for the apprenticeship in their 60s but it does happen and there is nothing wrong with it now if you're thinking about pursuing this career later on in your life but you're still unsure whether or not you're a little too old to get into this well then here's a list of questions that you should ask yourself so the first thing you should ask yourself is are you physically capable of doing the work now it's no secret that this being a trade can be pretty physically demanding at times and if you want to know more what i mean about that then check out my video three things that i don't like about being an electrician i do elaborate on that a little bit more but for the sake of this video just ask yourself these questions you know can you climb a ladder can you pull wire can you use power tools uh can you stand up and walk around for eight hours a day are these things that you're physically capable of doing the second question is this are you willing to humble yourself and be teachable even if that means being taught by somebody that's much younger than you if you're getting into this career in your 40s 50s even in your 60s well there's a good chance that you could have a journeyman that is half your age and you just need to remember that this person already went through the apprenticeship and they've learned all the skills and the knowledge that's necessary to do this trade and so are you willing to submit to them and you know understand that they know what they're doing and humble yourself and let them teach you so i think the third question that you should ask yourself is how much longer do you plan on working i would say that if you're considering this career but you really think that you're all going to be working for maybe two or three more years well then maybe this wouldn't be the best idea because like i said the average length of an apprenticeship is anywhere between four or five years so you're going to want to make sure that you can at least finish your apprenticeship now i don't want to get too much into this in this video here but basically here at ibw local 48 they have assigned a contract at the beginning of our apprenticeship that says hey we're going to invest five years into you as an apprentice we're going to give you free tools we're going to give you free books we're going to give you free tuition and it's going to be a high class you know great education but what we want to return from you is five years after you turn out to continue working for the ibew and it's kind of like a way of paying them back except you're really not paying them anything but that's something to consider because here at lewistown our local it's kind of like a 10-year commitment five years for the apprenticeship and then five years to continue working for the ibw and i don't know if it's the same way for airfield local but that is how it works here so maybe that's something to look into at your local training center now if you're doing a non-union apprenticeship or your ibw local doesn't have that same requirement well then it really doesn't matter i guess you could pretty much just finish your apprenticeship get your journeyman's license and then you really could retire if you wanted now the average age that people retire here in the us is 64 years old so of course that means that some people are going to retire in their 50s and some people are going to retire in their 70s and there's nothing wrong with that but that's maybe just something to keep in mind with that last question how many years do you plan on continuing to work and of course the earlier that you get into this trade the better your pension is going to be so for me i got into this trade i think i was 22 and so you know i'll have 30 plus years um you know contributing to my pension so it should be pretty killer by the time that i retire but for you guys that are getting into this trade right out of high school which man that's the dream that is what so many people wish that they could have done well then you're just gonna have an insanely good pension by the time that you retire because of all that compelled interest racking up over the years quick side note by the way for anybody watching this video but specifically you younger people that are watching this right now is to start looking into investing you know and working on your retirement plan right away even right out of high school if you can the younger you know like i said the younger you start contributing to that the more the compound interest is going to rack up and the better your retirement is going to be all right you guys that little bit of advice aside here is the bottom line if you are still physically capable of doing this work if you are able to humble yourself and be teachable and you are at least able to work long enough to complete your apprenticeship then it does not matter how old you are you are still young enough to start this apprenticeship so now i'm curious if you're already an electrician then go ahead and put down in the comments how old you were when you started your apprenticeship and if you're currently trying to become an apprentice then also go ahead and put your age down in the comments i think it's going to be really encouraging for other people to see how old some of you guys were when you got into the apprenticeship or when you're also attempting to get into it all right you guys well i think that is it if you enjoyed the video would you just consider hitting the like button it will help youtube to recommend my videos to more people and then if you haven't already would you also please just consider subscribing um this channel has been growing like crazy and i'm absolutely thankful for that but i'm also going to be releasing tons more content that i think that you will find valuable if you enjoyed this video and then also if you have an instagram you can follow me on my electrician instagram page which is at mad electrician official keep up with me on my day-to-day life as a hospital sustaining electrician so anyways you guys i really appreciate you thank you so much for sticking around till the end and have a good one

Channel: Mad Electrician

Views: 38,507

Keywords: Am I too old to become an apprentice?, Am I too old to become an electrician?, Am I too old to become an apprentice electrician?, Too old to become an electrician, Too old to become an apprentice, Too old to become an apprentice electrician, Electrician, Apprentice, Apprentice electrician, Mad electrician, ibew, Electrician apprenticeship, Ibew apprentice, Njatc, Nietc, Too old

Id: fhq5_L6ZtE4

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020