The next installment in our Boot Camps: The Student View series brings us to the welding boot camp. For the welding boot camp students, classes have been running for about a month, and their internship experiences are just beginning.
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Manufacturing boot camps have become a staple at Moraine Park over the last four years and continue to keep going strong.  Throughout those four years, we’ve promoted our Manufacturing Skills Academies for their job placement rates and life-changing stories – and we’ll continue to do so. But there’s more to it than that.
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Reasons to come to Test Drive:

1. I don’t know anything about being a CNC machinist.
2. I am a trained welder.
3. I’ve welded some pieces together before, but I don’t have formal training.
4. I don’t think I have a interest in manufacturing careers.
5. I’ve never worked in manufacturing and want to get a taste for it.
6. I don’t know what I want to do next.
7. I have no plans on Tuesday, and I would just like to make something in the workshops.
8. I want to meet the employers that are part of the boot camps.
9. I think the boot camps might be for me.

Reasons not to come to Test Drive:

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The use of computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools is increasing in all sectors of the manufacturing industry. As a result, the CNC trade is growing very strong and is looking for some good candidates to fill all the potions that are offered out there.
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Skills Gap in Manufacturing

Manufacturing companies have realized there is a significant gap between the talent they need to continue to grow their business, and the talent they can actually find. Here in Fond du Lac, Mercury Marine has run into this problem, and is working with Moraine Park Technical College to address these issues. The company has lost a lot of “tribal knowledge” due to retirements and they realized the need to improve the skills of their current employees.
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Manufacturing skills are in high demand and the manufacturing industry continues to expand, Moraine Park Technical College Economic and Workforce Development is giving students the opportunity to gain those skills by offering short-term training boot camps. We often boast about the success of students who leave this short-term training opportunity and go on to succeed, not just in steady jobs, but in careers. We want you to be successful long after you leave, and part of that success comes from finding the right fit in an internship.

What’s the value of an internship?

It’s a chance to show employers your skills, while making sure that they’re a fit for you too. It’s an extended job interview – a chance to shine off paper. It’s an opportunity that could lead to a new future.

But maybe it’s better if you heard it right from the source. Meet our spring 2016 boot campers:
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Boot Camp.

For some these two words have a military connotation.

But that’s not who we are.

A google image search will reveal fitness classes with people running, doing pushups, and generally sweating their way to good health.

Moving in the right direction, but with a different kind of fitness.

Part of the Merriam-Webster definition is: “a program or situation that helps people become much better at doing something in a short period of time.”

Spot on. But there’s still more.

What if, when you saw the words Boot Camp, you thought…
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