What to Ask Electrician Trade Schools<\/strong><\/h3>\nNow that you have made a decision to obtain a certificate, diploma or degree, you can begin to refine your school options. Because there are numerous electrician tech and trade schools in the Los Alamitos CA region, it’s important to have a checklist of qualifications that each school must meet. The first two that we talked about were location and the cost of tuition. If you have an interest in earning an degree online, then that needs to be a feature that your chosen school offers. And while all three qualifiers may be crucial when making your selection, there are additional variables that need to be taken into account as well. Following is a checklist of those additional qualifications that you will need to assess prior to selecting an electrical tech school.<\/p>\n
Accreditation. <\/strong>Numerous electrician technical programs have acquired either a regional or a national accreditation. They can acquire Institutional Accreditation, which involves the school’s programs overall, or Programmatic Accreditation, which relates to a specific program, for instance electrical technology. Make sure that the Los Alamitos CA school is accredited by a U.S. Department of Education approved accrediting organization, which includes the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. In addition to helping ensure that you receive a superior education, it can help in obtaining financial aid or student loans, which are in many cases unavailable for non-accredited schools. Also, a number of states mandate that the electrician training program be accredited in order to be approved for licensing.<\/p>\nHigh Completion and Placement Rates. <\/strong>Ask the electrician schools you are considering what their completion rates are. The completion rate is the portion or percentage of students who enroll in and finish the course. A low completion rate may suggest that students were disappointed with the program and dropped out. It could also suggest that the teachers were not qualified to instruct the students. It’s also essential that the schools have higher job placement rates. Older and\/or more reputable schools may have a broader list of alumni, which can mean more contacts for the school to utilize for their apprenticeship and job placement programs. A high job placement rate can not only validate that the school has a good reputation within the trade, but additionally that it has the network of contacts to help Los Alamitos CA graduates obtain apprenticeships or employment.<\/p>\nApprenticeship Programs. <\/strong>Most electrician vocational programs are taught together with an internship or an apprenticeship program. Those participating vocational and trade schools will help place you in an apprenticeship program within their network of electrician businesses or labor unions. Check if the schools you are considering have working partnerships with Los Alamitos CA area electricians or electrical contractors. An apprenticeship not only offers a valuable experience by supplying hands-on training, but it also provides employment opportunities and helps to form relationships in the area electrician professional community.<\/p>\nModern Facilities. <\/strong>Confirm that the school facilities and the tools that you will be instructed on are up-to-date and what you will be using on the job. If you are presently in an internship or an apprenticeship, check with the electrical technician you are working with regarding what you should be expecting. If not, ask a local Los Alamitos CA electrical contracting company if they can give you some tips. Also keep in mind that unless you are able to move, the school must be within driving distance of your Los Alamitos home. Take note that if you decide to enroll in an out-of-state school, besides the added relocation costs there can be higher tuition charges compared to in-state residents.<\/p>\nSmaller Classes. <\/strong>It’s important that you receive as much one-on-one instruction as possible, which can be difficult in bigger classes. Ask if you can monitor a few of the classes so that you can observe how large they are and witness first hand the interaction between students and teachers. Talk with a few of the students and get their feedback concerning class sizes and instruction. Finally, talk with a few of the instructors and find out what their level of expertise is and what degrees or certifications they have earned.<\/p>\nFlexible Scheduling. <\/strong>Confirm that the class schedules for the schools you are reviewing are flexible enough to fulfill your needs. If you are only able to go to classes at night or on weekends near Los Alamitos CA, confirm that the schools you are considering offer those options. If you can only attend on a part-time basis, make certain that the school you select offers part-time enrollment. Additionally, find out what the policy is to make-up classes should you miss any because of work, illness or family issues.<\/p>\nConsidering Attending an Electrician School near Los Alamitos CA?<\/h3>\n
Following is a little bit of background information about the Los Alamitos CA area.<\/p>\n
Los Alamitos, California<\/h3>
Los Alamitos (\"The Little Cottonwoods\" in Spanish) is a small city in Orange County, California. The city was incorporated in March 1960. The population was 11,449 at the 2010 census, down from 11,536 at the 2000 census. It is often[citation needed] mistakenly thought[who?] to include the adjacent but unincorporated community of Rossmoor (population just under 11,000), which uses Los Alamitos as its mailing address. The Los Alamitos Race Course is also widely believed[who?] to be in the city; although it does have a Los Alamitos postal address and zip code, it actually lies in the neighboring city of Cypress.<\/p>
The history of the area during the Californio period and after U.S. annexation is detailed in the article on Rancho Los Alamitos. The town of Los Alamitos was established in 1896 by Lewellyn Bixby to support the new sugar beet factory in town built by the extremely wealthy Clark Brothers. William Andrews Clark, a future Senator from Montana, had built his fortune in mining, banking and logging in that state. His younger brother, J. Ross Clark, managed their operations in California after he moved to that state for health reasons. Lewellyn Bixby, whose family owned the surrounding land on the Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos, had been trying to build a sugar beet factory in that area for a few years but, due to financial losses in the 1880s, he no longer had the financial capital to undertake the sugar beet factory complex on his own. Bixby had made his fortune back in the 1850s when he and his cousins Benjamin and Thomas Flint, formed Flint, Bixby & Co. which became a thriving entity in mutton and wool, all originally housed on the Rancho San Justo, south of San Jose. After making an additional fortune from selling wool to the government during the Civil War, the Flints and Bixby bought up many properties in Southern California. One was the future Irvine Ranch and another was the Rancho Los Cerritos which makes up much of the western half of Long Beach. Flint, Bixby hired Lewellyn's younger brother Jotham to manage the Cerritos. When Flint, Bixby broke up Lewellyn assumed their Southern California properties and moved to Los Angeles and became the senior partner in his operations with his brother Jotham.<\/p>
Around 1881, a cousin, John W. Bixby wanted to purchase the Rancho Los Alamitos. John W. put together a consortium of himself, his cousins Lewellyn and Jotham (owners of Rancho Los Cerritos) and banker I.W. Hellman to finance the purchase of the Alamitos land. Upon John's sudden death on 7 May 1887,[8] the ranch was divided between the three owning families. The northern third adjacent to the Rancho Los Cerritos \u2014 the land roughly north of present Orangewood Ave.\u2014went to the Lewellyn-Jotham faction (which later became the Bixby Land Company). By the mid-1890s, after the crash following the land boom of the 1880s\u2014this group was relatively cash-poor and land rich. Having experimented in Northern California with sugar beets, the Bixbys agreed to provide the land, and contracted with Montana copper baron William A. Clark to provide the capital, and got E.A. Dyer to provide the expertise to build a new sugar beet factory on the Bixby's land. The community that grew up around this new sugar beet factory complex\u2014with its streets of company houses for workers and surrounding farms\u2014came to be called Los Alamitos. (As part of his arrangement to build and operate the sugar beet factory, William Clark and his brother H. Ross, who actually ran the Los Alamitos operation, also received 1,000 acres east of the factory and a year later completed a purchase of 8,000 acres (32\u00a0km2) of land north of the sugar plant\u2014most of the latter in the Rancho Los Cerritos boundaries\u2014that would eventually become the Long Beach Airport, Long Beach City College, and the city of Lakewood. Also, Clark and Hellman were intricately involved with the machinations and corporate dealings of railroad tycoon E. H. Harriman and Henry Edwards Huntington and the destiny of the Southern Pacific in Southern California. In addition, some time after establishing Los Alamitos, the Clarks completed their railroad from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, establishing the desert stop of Las Vegas in the process.<\/p><\/div>\n