 To help us illustrate what a youth apprenticeship program looks like on the ground, we've invited Drake head to speak with us. Drake is a former project lead the way engineering assistant youth apprentice with the Charleston regional youth apprenticeship program at Trident technical college in Charleston, South Carolina. Drake, can you take a moment to introduce yourself. I'm Drake head. I'm a former youth apprentice. The actually the apprenticeship that I the place I work for I'm still working there currently. So it's called Kia North America, and I am also going to the Citadel so full time student part time employee. How did you find out about the engineering youth apprenticeship program. And why were you interested. So my dad is actually a mentor for youth apprentices at VTL precision here in the low country. So when I was in high school, every chance I got I would go with him to VTL to kind of like get my, you know, get my hands dirty in the manufacturing world a little bit. So at the time I made I kind of tried to make friends with some of the youth apprentices that were there at VTL like ask them, you know, how their experience was, did they like it and everyone was very positive they like Trident they liked being able to work, you know, and I think it was also like I wasn't super interested in doing the four year path at a university. So I was really interested in, you know, being able to work hands on experience, as well as getting my background in engineering because you know that was my dream has become an engineer. Can you tell us a little bit about the application process and how that onboarding go for you. I mean, obviously I had to fill out cover letter, I had to fill out a resume which there wasn't much because I was a graduating senior from high school, but it was something you know. So the cool thing about it was is I got to meet. They had like the youth apprenticeship day at Trident. So they have all the employers there for engineering nursing, etc. And I actually got to meet my future employer there. And I told them like, I'm very interested in Keon. And the good thing is is like you, you can't just be dead set up one. You put your application to her and she'll send it out to everyone you'll get phone calls, you know, left and right and it was really cool experience but I ended up getting a call from the company I wanted to work with so. Once you got in the door and you knew where you were heading. Can you tell us a little bit what your typical work week was like and some things that you consistently worked on or any major projects you were able to accomplish. Sure. So my typical work school schedule, typically I worked Monday, Wednesday, Friday at Keon, six to 230. So eight hours or 24 hours a week. And that was also while maintaining a minimum of 12 credit hours in college. So I'm even doing that same schedule now at the Citadel. Half my day is usually spent doing like assembly line support and then the other half is, you know, engineering work instructions, etc. You know you start and you like, for example, we build forklifts at Keon. So I started on the assembly lines and you got to start from the bottom, learn the basics, you know, building hands on all that and then they would start giving me tasks, you know and then they would see, he can do this. All right, we're going to keep going, you know what I mean, they were very flexible, and they would allow me to show my strengths and show what I was strong with to kind of get me into a good area at Keon, which was a really fun and then eventually they would, they kind of upped my responsibilities. And I was able to be a part of setting up two new assembly lines. So it was very, very interesting, but it was a lot of fun. Can you tell us a little bit about once you got started with your actual day to day duties with your job? Were things covered in the classroom that assisted in your day to day life at work or were things in work applicable to what you learned in class? When I was at Trident, I noticed a lot of the theory I was learning in college, the higher level applied when I was at work. So like I could see some of these things in process or understand, you know, why are they doing things this way and why I would understand it now because I took the course at TTC. But I will say I am and I'm at Citadel now and we're taking like higher level, a little bit broader courses, and I see the correlation like almost 100%. What is some advice you would offer to a young person considering doing apprenticeship? So I think the biggest piece of advice I could offer, and this is speaking towards people who, you know, are in high school and they're immediately going into the youth apprenticeship is, you know, you're definitely pushed out of your comfort zone. I love my comfy waking up at seven and getting to high school at eight and leaving at one. That was awesome. But now, you know, life hits you pretty hard. You're going to have to put in 110%. One of the pros was definitely the first two years at Trident was free. I mean, money is hard to come by, so it was free at Trident, which was awesome. And as far as accelerating my career, since I worked with Keon, you know, after my two years was up with my apprenticeship, I basically said, look, I don't want to leave I would like to stay here. And they said, well, we'll one up you. If you sign an agreement for three year commitment will pay for all of your Citadel College. So I got that all paid for so I think you know you put in put a little bit of work then you might just bring the awards later on. So