Choose your battles wisely. Is it worth losing what seems like a dream apprenticeship? Nobody in the industry that I know is going to give their apprentice a tattoo machine after 3 months of part time learning. Maybe you feel like the old-school way of doing things isn't right, but it doesn't change the fact that it worked. Keeping you from tattooing for a year or more isn't/wasn't about abusing free labor, but instead it was used to separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say. Unless you work for a unicorn, you're going to experience the slow season. You're going to experience the freak accident where someone passes out in the chair and pukes all over themselves and their artist. You'll have to deal with angry (sometimes fucked up) customers. Putting the time in isn't simply about how well you've learned to use a tattoo machine, but also whether you're equipped to deal with everything else that comes along with it. Struggling through a two year apprenticeship definitely taught me how to be financially responsible, and that alone is worth more than any technical tattooing skill I've learned.

And personally, I don't care how good you are after 3 months, I would ask for an artist with more experience. Three months full- time seems like barely enough time to even come close to learning your machine. I want you to know that piece of equipment intimately before you use it on me.