查塔姆正规买球app十佳排行和唱片公司工作人员扎卡里·霍纳报道

匹兹堡——建筑和护理是完全不同的领域. At least that's what former registered nurse Roxanne McDonough thought when she signed up for 中央卡罗莱纳社区学院's Building Construction Technology program. "I got terribly burnt out, wasn't really enjoying what I was doing," McDonough said. "(So) I chose to do something that I found that I enjoyed doing, which was building stuff."

McDonough's story might be typical of many community college students -- adults trying a new career path -- but choosing construction might not just fit her desire to build. As Chatham County continues to grow with several residential developments and commercial development expected to follow behind, 该学院希望它的项目能在未来发挥作用.

“对很多人来说，这是一个非常好的机会,杰夫·甘农说, BCT项目的首席讲师, 该项目于2016年秋季在推荐正规买球平台匹兹堡校区开始. “你可以有不同的背景, 进入这个行业，为自己的一生奠定基础, 在查塔姆县有丰厚的收入. 你在家乡可以找到很多工作." The program is an offshoot of the college's Sustainable Technology major that focuses more on the nuts and bolts -- no pun intended -- of construction, 建筑规范, 电, 管道及其他. Gannon said the program attempts to help give students the whole picture of what goes 为建设, 在查塔姆小屋中达到高潮.

小屋是一年制的, 500-square foot residence that students build from scratch and is auctioned off in late July. 莱尔Wesner, 另一个学生, said it offers a different opportunity that most construction sites, where laborers might just be focusing on one specific task and doing it repeatedly. "Jeff encouraged everybody to take the opportunity to do something they were uncomfortable with,韦斯纳说. "So everybody rotated through the different building components that were going on at one time and everybody got their hands on everything." It's that type of "real world" experience that attracted Wesner to the program. Gannon spent 12 years as a contractor focusing on sustainable technologies, 他已经把这一点融入到他现在领导的项目中. He says that construction is among the leading contributors to climate change across the world and that little changes to the construction process can make a big difference. “我们不只是教授建筑技能, 我们在教人们如何建造得更好, how the little differences in how you put two pieces of wood together makes a difference in how the house operates,甘农说. “考虑到查塔姆县的发展规模, we stand to make a fairly decent impact on the carbon output that of all these construction projects are contributing here in our area." According to a 2013 report by the United Nations Environment Programme, buildings both commercial and residential account for approximately 40 percent of annual energy consumption and up to 30 percent of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions around the world. But the report states that "the building sector has also been shown to provide the greatest potential for delivering significant cuts in emissions at low or no-cost, 或者净储蓄, 发达经济体和发展中经济体."

Wenser has seen that first hand, as he currently works for a renewable energy company. He got the job after completing an internship there and said working in that field requires basic construction tech knowledge. “要在那里工作，人们需要精通建筑, 尤其是对那些在战场上的人,他说.

On a recent Tuesday morning when Wesner was discussing renewable energy construction, 该项目的学生正在将两个灯泡连接到四个开关上. 麦克多诺说，这听起来可能很简单, but you have to hook two four-way switches and two threeway switches to two light bulbs, 它们都必须打开. For the constructionally- uneducated, that phrasing might sound foreign.

这就是麦克多诺想要的教育, even though she admitted that women don't really have a historic track record of being involved in construction. Gannon said that declining workforces have led to more women pursuing construction jobs and that females make up approximately 30 percent of the 推荐正规买球平台 program. “他们带着开放的心态来学习，”他说. “他们为这个项目带来了资产和额外的技能水平." McDonough said her shop at home is better than that of her husband -- an instructor in heavy equipment operation at another college -- and he hears about it "all the time." She added that she's received more respect from people than questions or doubts, 虽然有时候她去买木材的时候, 有人问她是不是给她丈夫的. “我认为这种转变已经开始了，”她说. “没有足够的人来做所有的工作, 女性也有良好的职业道德, 如果不是更好的话, 而不是男人."

她还带来了一些护理技能, 比如批判性思维和团队合作, 为建设. According to the National Association of Women in Construction, there were 1.131 million women in the construction industry in 2006, a number that dropped to 802,000 in 2012. 但这个数字已经反弹, 大约有939人,000 women employed in various construction- related jobs at the end of 2016, 大约9.百分之一的面积. McDonough posits that women may be bringing their maternal instincts into the job and that makes them better. 甘农也不完全确定, 但他想要他所有的学生, 男性或女性, to walk away from the program with a desire to see construction as helping others.

"My hope is that people walk away from this program with the awareness that the work we do is important,他说. “如果它不重要，你就把它变得重要. By importance, I mean that it serves a purpose greater than the individual. You build quality work that's going to function well and is going to serve the community."