Pueblo Community College Southwest provided a way for Nyles Barnard to make a major change in his high school education. In the process, he gained access to a career he hopes will take him to another continent.
Welding was Barnard’s favorite class when he attended a traditional high school. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his only class.
“I wasn’t exactly bad at normal work at high school, but I was a lot better at manufacturing and building stuff,” he said. “I was falling a bit behind and just wasn’t all that motivated to get work done. The welding course was the only thing I ever got straight A’s in.”
The desire for a more hands-on experience led him to check out the Gateway to College program at PCC Southwest. GTC serves students ages 17-20 who haven’t found the right educational fit in a regular high school environment. With his parents’ encouragement, he applied and was accepted to the program, which turned out to be the change he needed.
“I was doing a lot better with smaller and more tight-knit classrooms,” said Barnard. “A lot more resources could be allocated to asking questions and doing projects. I thought that was a lot more useful to me than just the standard high school way.”
Because the Gateway program enables students to earn college credits while working toward their high school graduation, Barnard was also able to accelerate his welding education. Now that he has earned his high school diploma, he’s finishing his associate degree in welding, driving each morning from Durango to the PCC Southwest Mancos campus for classes.
“I like welding because I think the concept of it is really cool,” he said. “You’re basically hot-gluing metal together using electricity and reaching temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun, which I think is very interesting – that people can do that.”
He plans to move to Australia, where welders are in great demand, and work in the country’s emerging energy or mining industries. He’s grateful to PCC Southwest for helping him make that career opportunity a reality.
"It’s a good space to be able to make mistakes and just figure out how to go about things," he said. "The teachers over here are really good at their jobs and there are a lot of really nice resources at our disposal.”
