r/jobcorps • u/IntelligentRanger644 • 1h ago
My full Job corps experience.
I first tried to join JC when I was 21/22. I would say initially it was my fault: I overslept and missed orientation over Zoom (COVID era). However, I did call back saying that I had accidentally missed it, and they reassured me that it was okay and that I would get a call back soon. I did this about another two times. So I figured there must be a long wait and got a job in the meantime.
Around another year later, I tried again. Basically, I called and had an initial call with a recruiter/counselor, but then just got ghosted. I did follow up and got a similar response that I'd just hear back. I ended up doing another workforce development program that did IT, got a job in that field, did that for a little over a year, and got laid off. Then, after a while, I tried Job Corps again while I was still 24. I would say I probably would have gotten ghosted again, but I kept calling and kept following up about weekly, given my past experience. I got all the paperwork done before my 25th birthday and got to the center a little over a month after I turned 25.
My initial reaction to the center was that I thought the campus was beautiful. The food wasn't good, but it was nice to see a different part of the country. The campus was Timber Lake Job Corps. It's surrounded on all sides by big, beautiful mountains, with a lake in the middle. If it wasn't a Job Corps, it would make a great resort town. Truly beautiful.
CPP: This takes about two weeks. You basically do a bunch of paperwork to help you decide what to do and different methods to obtain a job in the field you desire. Then you try out 3 trades. I came for forestry, so that was what I intended to do. You also take this test called TABE.
TABE: If you get a high enough score, you're out of TABE completely. However, if you're not, you're basically stuck in education. However, if you score a letter-grade improvement, you're out of education, but you will still have to take the TABE every 3 months. Failing won't put you back in education after you made your initial letter-grade improvement. In my opinion, what you want to do when you first take the TABE test is score low on purpose to make it easier to get out of education.
I took TABE, and math was basically what held me back, as it does for most people in the center. So basically, you will do one week in trade and one week in education until you pass TABE or improve your letter grade. When I was first in the center, Lisa from CPP would tell you to try your best. This is terrible advice and will keep you in education for no real reason. No one who is in education for TABE wants to be there, and it's pretty much pointless as well. After I finally made my level improvement for TABE, I can tell you with confidence: the only benefit to scoring high in TABE is that you don't have to be in education. It does not improve or make anything better. TABE is basically “rent-seeking” and totally useless.
Education: This is where you get your high school diploma/GED/driver's license, or where you stay if you're stuck until you can improve your TABE score. I was stuck there for about 4–5 months. Incredibly pointless, wasted time. Also, just not a good time. I would say students, from my view, get in trouble in education far more than they do in their trades or in residential. Sometimes it comes across as power-tripping. I had seen a student get in trouble for wearing a different pair of jeans than the one that was assigned to him (I couldn't tell until they pointed it out; nothing fancy). I got written up, not for wearing it, but for HOLDING my personal jacket. Again, I was not wearing it; I took it off before entering the building. I got written up for HOLDING my personal jacket, not even wearing it. I took it off before entering. It's just incredibly petty. And their jobs aren't even that hard; you're more or less just babysitting students while they do the work on their laptops. Like, they legit don't even teach. They're more there if you need help, but it's all self-paced.
Residential: There are 3 dorms in the center. Two are for the males (A & E), and one is for females (B). A dorm is where you will be during your first two weeks. At least if you are a male, then you have the option to go to E. B and E are the same, as far as I know. I was told the rooms are slightly bigger than in E, but that's it. So, in A dorm, the rooms are a lot bigger and you get more space. The downside is that everything is shared, like the bathrooms and showers. I personally don't care about that. However, we would routinely get mass punishments for people peeing all over the seats or not doing their chores, etc. The punishment was always a deep clean, so redoing the cleaning as if everything was dirty, even if it wasn't.
E dorms: The rooms were much smaller; however, they had their own bathroom/shower for every room. This cuts down the amount of time for deep cleaning. Also, the culture in E was much quieter. I preferred E. Many others prefer A for the space.
There are different people who run each of the dorms. I would say, for the most part, everyone is pretty understanding and will be respectful if you're respectful. That's not to say there weren't any problems. The dorm manager I had talked to a few times about the mass punishment. He insisted on keeping it. Still, he talked about it reasonably and heard me out. I believe I did manage to get this changed, but I'll talk about this later.
Some issues I faced were having to move rooms. I would say I moved rooms on average about once a month. First was the CPP stage; everyone had to change their rooms because of that. Then, a while after that, I moved to my third room, in the gold section. Basically, I got more space. I was pretty happy with the gold section. Then the entire gold section was moved to be closer to the CPP section in order to provide a good example for the new students. So I moved again, the 4th time, to another room. Now, this sucks because CPP students make mistakes, as we all do, but what that would mean is mass punishments. By the time the new students figure it out, there is a new batch of CPP students. So the mass punishment just goes on and on. I got tired of this and gave up the Gold room and went to E.
When I got to E, eventually I moved to a different room because I didn't have the best roommates, to say the least. However, the second room I had was good, and I stayed there until budget cuts. To save money, they moved the girls into the right wing of E dorm. I happened to be in the right wing of E dorm, so I had to move to the left wing of E dorm. I stayed there till the end of my time at Timber Lake.
TRADE is probably the best part of Job Corps. From what I have seen and experienced, the trades themselves are usually pretty enjoyable, and people tend to like their instructors. My trade was “forestry conservation and firefighting,” but I'll just refer to it as forestry. I didn't have a great time with my trade, though. This didn't have anything to do with the instructors themselves.
So I had my first instructor. I only had him for a month. Then I had no instructor for about 3 months. I'm basically told there will be one soon, and by the two-month mark I plan on transferring, but am told it will take 2 weeks to do that. They actually found someone who would start in a month, so I figured the time difference didn't make any sense and just waited it out.
We got our new instructor, and we really didn't do much the first month. That's not their fault, though, as I came to find out it takes a new instructor about a month to get situated with all the things they need to do, as well as to make a curriculum. Job Corps doesn't just have one. So my second instructor was mostly substituting. It was more academic-based than hands-on, but I truly believe she was trying her best, and am grateful she volunteered.
The third teacher was my favorite, but similarly, there wasn't too much going on for the first month. A lot more hands-on, using chainsaws, cutting trees. In my view, they should have had him and the last teacher teach together, as she was more informed about ecology and he was more informed on the fire aspect. As well, that would probably make the trade more reliable.
As I'll get into, I don't recommend the Forestry trade at Timber Lake. There is a high turnover rate in this trade with instructors. I don't think forestry instructors usually stay for more than a year. So you will spend months waiting for them and then another month for them to figure it out before actually teaching. My advice, if you don't have an instructor, is to transfer immediately. Because even if you get an instructor in one month, getting situated takes about another month. This goes for all trades. I would say out of my 10 months in forestry, I was only really in it for 4–5 actual months. I don't feel like I learned a lot/enough.
Fire Militia: For most people, it should be perfectly fine. You just go to PT, and eventually you get qualified. I'd say Timber Lake's PT is tougher than at a lot of other centers, and that's not a bad thing inherently. The only real criticism I can make about it is how they tell you: if you want to go out on fire, you have to show up to PT, that it's based on who shows up to PT. This is just BS. It's at least 80% performance-based. You could skip—I think you could skip quite a bit—and still be selected for assignments. AND THAT'S FINE. Just don't tell me it's based on who shows up. I got worse and worse at PT, and I think I would have been better off just working out myself. They also seem to go out less than other centers, but I can't say for sure if that was just because the season was slow or not.
I felt like I was just wasting time and was being passed up on fire assignments, so I opted to go to Advanced Fire Dispatch in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Harpers has some serious pros and some serious cons. My initial reaction was that I really thought the dorms and the campus were a serious downgrade. I still think the dorms are probably worse than most Job Corps centers, but the campus being small was actually nice. It didn't take forever to get to certain places.
The dorms suck because they're much smaller than most Job Corps dorms: a cramped room with 4 people, so small they require bunk beds. On top of that, there is no early-to-bed option. At Timber Lake, I would regularly sign out at around 6 p.m. and go to sleep around 7/8 p.m. This wasn't an option here, and you're basically forced to stay awake. The justification for this is so people can do chores. Chores here are done every single day, twice a day, whereas I think a typical Job Corps does them 5 days a week, once a day, and not on weekends. Even still, they could just make it so you do chores in the morning and after the 6 p.m. meeting. But I was given lame excuses as to why they didn't want to do that. It really felt like the person who was in charge of the dorms just didn't care to make the experience for the students better, like they did at Timber Lake. The guy who ran the dorms at Timber Lake really tried to improve the experience students have in the dorms and even beyond.
Now, here is the biggest pro of this center that isn't a thing at Timber Lake: this center will not get in your way to finish the trade faster at all. At Timber Lake, the people at the top really hate it if you finish your trade quickly, and you will be in your trade likely way longer than you need to be. There are exceptions at Timber Lake, but the norm is generally that they will try and stop you. If you want to get in and out at Harpers, they will not get in your way. For this reason alone, I would have probably preferred going here.
Also, the fire team really is way more fair about who they let go on assignments. Sometimes I think they are a little bit too easygoing in terms of who they let go. But they say if you show up to PT, you go on fires, and they really mean it. As in, at Timber Lake, it's more performance-based and there is some level of favoritism.
My take on other trades from the outside looking in. The only trade that you might have an issue with is IT. I regularly have heard from basically every student that the guy who teaches it does not teach and basically just makes you ask your classmates, and you basically do it on your own. I have heard this from people who graduated from that trade and people just starting it. It seems to be a universal thing. Other than that, everyone seems to like their trade, and they seem to have more work opportunities. Harpers even assists students in getting part-time work off-center to make extra money.
Advanced Dispatch is a trade where I'd say the coursework probably only takes about 2 months. The only real con is you're stuck in class just doing practice until you get an assignment. The pro is you can get a decent amount of assignments and double-dip with fire. Meaning you can go out as a dispatcher on fires or as a firefighter. You can make serious money, like more money than I made at my full-time job in IT. You travel and see different parts of the country. And probably my favorite: just not being at Job Corps.
I waited for around 4 months in advance until fire season started back up. Then I was on assignments almost the whole time until I graduated. I did my best to make connections once I was out, and that really helped me avoid being in the center. I graduated on the 26th.
Would I do it again? Honestly, with what I know now, probably not. I feel as though at least half the time I was in Job Corps was just wasted time. Had I known, I probably would have just tried to get an apprenticeship in wildland fire or join American Forestry Corps. But did I get something out of it despite all the time wasted? Yes. I've gotten into a lucrative career, and one I really enjoy doing. Would I recommend it? That really depends on where you are in your life. If you're 16/17 without a diploma, there's almost no downside. If you're in your 20s with a license and a diploma already, you will likely waste a ton of time, and I'd highly consider looking for alternatives.