Trades showcased at Assiniboine’s annual summit

More than 300 high school students went to work on Tuesday, learning skills such as plumbing, carpentry and mechanical work during a trades summit at Assiniboine College.

The fourth annual summit at the college’s North Hill campus allowed students from 16 schools in Manitoba and Saskatchewan to try multiple different trades scattered across campus.

“I think trades is just a cool industry — and lots of jobs you can go into, and lots of money too, so that’s why I like it,” Grade 10 student Tyler Drummond said.

“I like hands-on stuff and being outside, and I don’t really like sitting at a desk too much,” the Hartney School student said.

Drummond said carpentry or welding are trades he might pursue after graduating high school.

“You get to build stuff and you get to put stuff together. So, I just think it’s very useful,” he said.

Drummond, one of about 330 students at the summit, said he was hoping the event would allow him to meet people and make friends, which could help for the future as well.

Arianna Champion, a Grade 11 student at Waskada School, said being at the summit would help her find opportunities to find a job.

Champion said her dad is in trades, and she wants to follow in his footsteps. There isn’t any particular trade that she’s most interested in, she said.

“Just looking around, trying to find something that catches my eye,” she said while in line during a piping demonstration with classmates.

At the start of the piping demonstration, an Assiniboine College instructor gave students an overview of the different jobs available after taking the course, and mentioned some of the benefits — like higher salaries.

Other instructors pointed out that while jobs are open in trades like carpentry or plumbing, there are other positions that people might not realize are also available.

These can include working as an estimator, in administration or in management.

The college’s acting dean of trades said jobs are available for students coming into the workforce and post-secondary.

“Trades are growing. You see it on every news (story). We’re short, we need to build more, we don’t have enough housing,” Jim DeGraeve told the Sun.

“There’s lots of jobs in trades right now — it’s in high demand, and it’s starting to show,” he said. “We’re getting to the point where we have wait lists most of the programs.”

DeGraeve said the summit is one of the largest recruitment drives of the year for the trades department.

“It’s to kind of to get … students aware of it,” he said. “They come here, they explore. Unfortunately, we can’t get them into all of our trades, but they get a sampling of what it’s like. They get to meet industry partners.”

Before the first summit, some trades classes Assiniboine offered weren’t filled every year. But, in the last two years, all classes have been full, with an electrical program filled all the way until 2028, he said.

“Usually right after this (summit), we see an uptick in applications. I would say within a month,” the acting dean said. “And for sure, by June, we’re going to be full again.”

Chase Haynes, a Grade 12 Vincent Massey High School student, said he wanted to be at the summit to help him decide what to do for post-secondary.

“You always have a job, you can work for yourself — making money is so much easier,” Haynes said of jobs in trades.

Learning about multiple different professions in the same day will be valuable, he added.

“The more you know, the better off you are,” he said. “If you can do stuff yourself and be more self-sufficient and get further in life, it’s always a good thing to know.”

Other students at the summit said they were interested in trades because of their parents, because it’s hands-on work and it can turn into a hobby.

Previous editions of the summit have seen about the same number of students participate.

DeGraeve said the number of students on the waiting list for the summit is about the same as the number of students who attended this year.

He said Assiniboine would love to turn it into a two-day summit so more students can attend. But, it’s a lot of work to do even for one day, he said, and the college has commitments to students and staff before that.

» alambert@brandonsun.com