College of the Desert Classes Paving Way for Jobs
College of the Desert has openings in classes that could secure jobs. The Career and Technical Education sector of COD has openings for its fall classes. The automotive instructor, Julius Varga, says a technical education is the best bet for a secure job. “A mechanical career field it is transportable but not exportable,” he says, “and what I mean by that is you can take your knowledge and skill set and go anywhere in the world because there’s vehicles, there’s equipment that needs to be repaired all over the world, but the exportable part of it, you’re not going to take your car to Twentynine Palms to get it fixed, never mind Riverside.”
It seems shocking that there are openings in classes that could lead to such secure jobs, but the Vice President of COD explains societal norms keep some people away from technical eduactions. “You go to a community college for two to three years, you finish your transfer requirements, and then you transfer on to a four-year university and major in an area and then maybe five or six years later you come out the back end hopefully with some marketable skills and that seems to be what is socially accepted in our country for many many years,” he says.
Varga says you should choose post-high school plans based on your interests by asking yourself, “What are your passions? What do you want to do? One of the things I feel very blessed about is I never had a job where I dreaded to go to work.”
Varga stresses the importance of the automotive program at COD because of its direct line to a field of work with so many opportunities, because he says one in five jobs nowadays requires some sort of mechanical and automotive expertise.
