new and looking to learn

[fremantle]

hi guys,
I am a newbie here and am to everything electrical. I am 31 and got made redundant from my IT job. I am in Ireland but I am very close to Northern Ireland which is where I would do courses if I was to take one. I have worked in IT for 5 years, I have a similar qualification to a HND here in Ireland in Computer Electronics. I like the Idea of being an Electrician as It is something I hope I could travel with. If work dried up in one place. I would like to get into electrical maintanence. I am thinking about finishing my degree but the job opportunities in my area are poor for this and always have been. I see being qualified as an electrician as being a good qualification for a single man willing to travel. But in the current climate how hard will it be to get some one to take on an apprentice, and are there too many apprentices being put into the system. Is it a bad area to get into now, and how will it look when a 31 is doing an apprenticeship


Thanks
Paul.

 

[montybaber]

if maintenance is an area you are interested in then you could always write to large factories/industry etc with your details and then possibly they would take you on as a trainee etc.

Your computing/electronics would be a very good grounding in lots of areas ie PLC programming, ethernet/fieldbus etc and they may train you on the engineering/electrical side of things.

Electrician training and engineering training is quite different (I have done both) and if you become fully qualified working on sites then getting into maintenance may be difficult (not impossble) many electrically biased engineer jobs call for btec quals ie ONC,HNC,HND unfortunately the city and guilds quals sometimes get overlooked.