Originally Published as: Everyone has a fair chance at this scholarship: The More Effort You Put Into the Application Process, the More You Shine!

As a result of a collaboration with mikeroweWORKS Foundation (www.mikeroweworks.org), Rural Builder is featuring profiles of Work Ethic Scholarship recipients in each of its issues. Over 2,000 scholarships have been awarded to trade-school students who value hard work and taking personal responsibility. Rural Builder applauds these students and wants to acknowledge their choice to apply their talents to skilled trades. Thank you, mikeroweWORKS Foundation, for your continuing efforts to close the skills gap and “reconnect the average American with the value of a skilled workforce.”

When trying to find her career path, Caroline Knight could easily have chosen a path other than the trades. In fact, there are a number of reasons that she was more likely to go another way.

First she liked traditional school and she was good at it. She remembers being a “goody-two-shoes.” While these are all positive traits, they seem more conducive to becoming a teacher, a human resources professional, or some other  traditional white collar job.

Another personality trait that seemed likely to lead her in another direction was her antipathy to very demanding activities. She wanted to play sports for the fun of it, not spend her time in grueling practices. She was interested in music, and was dedicated to practice, but she didn’t want to make to make a career of it. Then, for a while, she thought she would go into the film industry, but found that it tended to take over one’s life and she walked away from that too.

Then, Caroline was in debt from previous studies, so just grabbing any available job would have been the easier choice than embracing more education.

She also had very little confidence in herself as she had discovered her interest in woodworking rather late. After college she took a single summer class in woodworking out of curiosity, and this was her whole experience in working in any kind of trades skill.

Another challenge was her doubt about whether she would fit into a male dominated space. However, Caroline said, “I had never found anything throughout my childhood, high school, or college years that felt as satisfying as  building an Adirondack chair during a summer woodworking class.”

Great Expectations

Caroline typed  “furniture making schools in the United States” into the browser on her computer, and the first thing that came up was North Bennett Street School in Boston, Massachusetts. She liked what she saw, and she had a friend who lived in Boston, so she applied and moved from Indiana, where she grew up, to Boston.

“The program was and wasn’t what I was expecting,” Caroline said. “I was caught up in the romance of woodworking. One room had different chair styles displayed all over the walls and I dreamt of making gorgeous furniture.”

Reality quickly reared its head. The program began, of course, at the beginning. The students were learning how to use hand tools, hand planes, chisels, and so on. Caroline adjusted quickly.

“It was challenging, but enjoyable,” she said. “With hand tools you can feel the difference in your body as your skills improve, in the way you hold the tool and the way you move.”

She continued, “The instructors were amazing and knowledgeable. They taught us practical skills, but they also taught problem solving skills.”

Caroline began by feeling overwhelmed because everyone had more experience and seemed to know more than she did, but she soon realized  that it wasn’t a problem. They were all at different levels, and she had a lot of people to learn from. The  instructor helped a lot; as she got to know him and feel comfortable with him, she learned to trust him to help without judgement. This bolstered her self confidence. Further, there were a few other women at the school, and that made her feel like she could aspire to work in a man’s space.

Earning a mikeroweWORKS Foundation Scholarship

“Applying for this scholarship was more intense than applying for others, in that there are several steps,” Caroline said, “but that means that everyone has a fair shot at the scholarship because the effort you put into it has more more of an effect on your likelihood of receiving it.”

The Foundation’s expectation of applicants putting great effort into the application makes a lot of sense when you consider that the reward is meant to help people with a strong work ethic and the energy to make a career in the trades.

According to Caroline, The Skill and Work Ethic Aren’t Taboo Pledge  – or S.W.E.A.T. Pledge – mirrors the idea that success comes from within.

“It’s about empowering yourself to create your own path to a successful career,” Caroline reflected. 

While she believes that the idea of the scholarship is to help students avoid going into debt, she was already in debt. The scholarship helped her pay off old debt and took a lot of pressure off of her while she completed her woodworking studies.

First Industry Opportunities

 After completing her studies, Caroline took a temporary position as a teaching assistant, which allowed her to remain at the school a little longer. She realized on the job that having skills is one thing, but knowing how to teach them is an entirely different skill, and she found two more mentors who “taught her how to teach.”

When the teaching assistant job ended, she found a job at an Architectural Woodwork Shop, a production shop where they do custom projects. Initially nervous because she only had experience in furniture making, she quickly found that skills transfer, and it’s not as foreign as she thought it might be.

In regard to Caroline’s original fear, she is currently the only woman at her workplace, Architectural Millwork Shop, but she said it doesn’t seem to matter to her co-workers, mainly men in their twenties and thirties.

Chasing a Feeling

Caroline plans to move to Charleston, South Carolina. She is open to different opportunities as she nurtures that sense of satisfaction she enjoyed at her first experience in woodworking.

She has no Big Dream that she is pursuing, instead she said she is enjoying every learning experience and work opportunity that comes her way.

Being free to move around, try out different roles, and chart your own career path is one of the many perks you earn when you enter a trade and learn skills that are always in demand.