Ricki Nelson
Certificate in Carpentry
"I left teachers college and worked for the Department of
Conservation and in Pest control in Geraldine, more recently I have
been working on farms and really enjoyed it. I had the skills and a
bit of knowledge about building but wanted the qualifications to go
with it. I often watched the Aoraki boys making the houses on
Theodosia Street in Timaru and decided to take the plunge and enrol
in the Certificate in Carpentry."
Ricki was named the top carpentry student in 2010 at Aoraki and
is now completing his apprenticeship with Stephen Brown
Building in Timaru.
Aoraki Polytechnic's Certificate in Carpentry enables students
to sign off the written side of the apprenticeship in one year.
"Doing the year at Aoraki has certainly proven itself now that I'm
in the industry, it's such a big help to get the paper work done in
a learning environment with the support of tutors, it would be too
easy to never get around to doing the book work if you were working
all day and had to study at nights."
"In the long run I still have my teaching qualification that I
could go back and finish and maybe become and tutor or wood work
teacher. For the time being I'm pretty happy that I'm getting paid
to do something I love, and have the bookwork out of the way to get
stuck into building!"