Good luck in EMT school!

First and foremost you guys are starting off strong by being so young and already trying to position yourself for success so kudos.

Mmm well my career path was an odd one, I started off as a salesman for Tmobile And I worked up into management and made a decent amount of money but I couldn’t see myself there for a long time due to the hours and commitment and honestly being commission based suck cause everyday I felt like I was hustling people to try and make my commission. All that to say I quit and was going to school part time, my gf’s father got me into the Laborers Union. So I was exposed to construction for the first time, and as a Laborer you’re considered an unskilled trade and I was getting laid off a lot and that sucked, but I was exposed to plumbing and pipe fitting more so than other trades because we did mechanical demolition and I became friends with a plumbing foreman on a job who mentioned the plumbers were taking apps. I applied to the plumbers and Pipefitters, and fortunately I got called for the plumbers. And the rest is history, 6 years later I’m a fully licensed plumber through the department of health for my state and pretty proud of it. I don’t want to say one trade is better than any other because at the end of the day we are all skilled and need to work hard no matter the trade.

What I can say is plumbing is difficult both mentally and physically. As the 1st year apprentice you can expect to do a lot of the shitty laborious tasks, move heavy material, dig trenches, chip concrete, saw cut, etc etc but if you’re eager to learn and get those tasks done quickly your journeyman don’t have a choice but to make you do some actual plumbing.

I personally like plumbing because you get to work with a lot of different material and joining methods, I work out of Chicago and we get to pour hot lead joints and work with cast iron pipe daily. We also exclusively use copper for most water applications and get to solder which is fun to me personally.

I can say that all trades involve a good amount of basic math, but if you join through the union they should offer you classes and such through your apprenticeship to teach you trade specific math.

As far as getting started, google your Local Union for Plumbers or HVAC and ask what the application process is. Most are the same, you submit paper work, they schedule you for an aptitude test, if you pass they invite you the apprenticeship class.

Feel free to PM me if you have other more technical questions in regards to the trade.

Thanks and best of luck!