Ranken’s Home-Building Program Gives Students Head Start
Date Posted: November 27, 2016
Posted In: Workforce,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: With a big smile, Melvin Dukes proudly points to the parts of the kitchen wall, an archway to the bathroom, a whole wall of siding outside and other intricacies of a house in north St. Louis that he’s helping build.
These are a few of his contributions to one of two houses under construction by Ranken Technical College’s carpentry program.
Each year, Ranken’s carpentry students build two homes. Their work is supplemented by other programs at the technical school.
The architecture students lay out the plans, the heating and cooling and plumbing students collaborate on the inner-workings of the house and the carpentry students take care of most of the rest. A few things are contracted out, like electrical work.
It’s part of Ranken’s hands-on learning mission, and the students say it’s working.
Dukes, 30, said he decided to go back to school and was debating between a few schools until he saw what he would get to do with the carpentry program at Ranken.
“I remember when we did that walk-through and I was like, ‘What do you mean we get to build a house?’” he said. “My eyes lit up.”
It’s not always easy, especially juggling the construction work for class, a carpet-cleaning job to earn money, then homework for his general education courses. But for Dukes’ end goal of owning his own company or being a landlord, this is worth it.