APPRENTICESHIP v DEGREE
Who’s better off?
Earn while you learn service electrician Winnie Rawiri- King finished her apprenticeship just over a year ago and has never looked back.
The 22- year- old has friends still finishing degrees or just getting started in the work force with big student loans. That was something she was always keen to avoid, she said.
“Earn while you learn,” she said. “That was an awesome plus, coming through all the training and not having any student loan.”
She did three years as an apprentice and now after one year being fully qualified she is already looking at more training.
She’ll now keep working and take night classes sponsored by her employer to give her more specialist technical skills.
“In university terms that’s like getting an amazing scholarship,” she said.
Rawiri- King said she was already earning “pretty well” as a service electrician.
“The thing people don’t realise with trades is that [ being an] electrician is just a start point, you can keep learning and there are so many other opportunities in the same industry.”
Rawiri- King said she agreed with BERL research which showed apprentice- trained tradespeople could equal the financial position of a university graduate over their career.
“I think it pays off if you just start saving straight away. You’ve got more opportunity to invest in a property,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say that those in the trades earn less than those with a degree.
“When I was first looking into trades there was a girl who had been through the same apprenticeship I did, she was 25 years old and on $ 160,000 a year.”
Rawiri- King said her mother started her in KiwiSaver early on and that she started contributing as soon as she was in the job.
Rawiri- King said she did not feel she had missed out the social side of life by skipping university.
There was a little bit more of a sense of heading straight into the adult world, she said.
“You’re the younger one but it definitely has a social side to it, any tradie will tell you that. There’s a lot of drinking and nights out socialising.”
Rawiri- King said being a woman electricians was not a problem despite it being a male dominated industry.
“I quite like the challenge of it. I know some other female electricians.
“It is becoming more common now but it’s still seen as a bit unusual and people are always interested.”