SLATINGTON, Pa. – Inside Slatington’s Szoke Brothers,18-year Keegan Hackett is ahead of his class.<\/p>\n
“Everything you weld in all positions is different and really tough to master,” he explained on his welding project.<\/p>\n
The Northampton High School senior is getting close; he recently won the 55th Annual Welding Society District 3 Competition. Sharpening his skills working as a full-time fabricator by day, taking online high school classes at night. It\u2019s work attained by enrolling at Bethlehem Area Vocational Technical School.<\/p>\n
“I knew from high school, [school] was not for me. When I learned about the opportunities to make a good living in a trade, I didn’t have to go spend money and time on college education, that really appealed to me,” he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an appeal that’s spreading. Bethlehem’s Vo-Tech, which has 27 trade programs, now has a wait list. 17-year-old Mario Negron landed a full-time summer plumbing gig, with immediate job satisfaction.<\/p>\n
“Once you fix a problem, it’s such a nice feeling of, \u2018I figured this out.\u2019” Negron said.<\/p>\n
School Executive Director Adam Lazarchak says a second location will open in two years as the stigma of enrolling in a trade is changing.<\/p>\n
“We’ve even had some parents that are skeptical at first of their children coming here until they actually experience what their kids are going through, and then the outcome of what happens to their kids once they graduate,” Lazarchak said.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes in the classroom there are things you learn to be successful, but it can be tough to see the path,” Keegan said.<\/p>\n
For Keegan, the path is clearer now; a full-time job and a first-place prize, in hand before graduation.<\/p>\n
“It’s a big burden off my shoulders,” he said.<\/p>\n
For many students, success may look less like a lecture hall, and more like sparks flying from a workshop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SLATINGTON, Pa. – Inside Slatington’s Szoke Brothers,18-year Keegan Hackett is ahead of his class. “Everything you weld in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,58410,155,154,88371,7648,13457,14335,88373,88369,88372,88370],"class_list":["post-199376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-area-vocational-technical-school","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-fabricator","tag-job-satisfaction","tag-plumbing","tag-skilled-trades","tag-trade-programs","tag-vocational-school","tag-waitlist","tag-welding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}