Cadet vs College

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Permalink Reply by Ron McRae on October 25, 2009 at 12:30am

If you have the money to put to school I would suggest going to college for your Fire 1. You'll learn all the basic stuff and its pretty thorough. I paid for my own Fire 1, Fire 2 and EMT-B and the first department I applied to I was able to get hired. Granted it's paid on call but having those certs open a lot of doors without having to rely on a department to train at their own pace. Hope that helps!

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Permalink Reply by Natalie Donato on October 25, 2009 at 12:53am

Ron,

Thank you so much for your reply, it's greatly appreciated.

The school I am hoping to get to go to gets your through both your Fire I and Fire II. Prior to starting, I plan to get my EMT-B training and certification.

Do you think that that would give me the best chance to succeed? I would like to do whatever it takes to make this all happen and give myself the best chance possible.

Thanks again,
Natalie

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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on October 25, 2009 at 12:59am

I agree with Ron. College would be the way to go. You'll get more from it. It also sounds like you already know what you want to do. Go for it with all you have and I wish you the best of luck.

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Permalink Reply by Natalie Donato on October 25, 2009 at 1:24am

Thanks Derek,

Ya, I have a pretty good idea of what I would like to do, I just tend to discourage myself about things. Especially huge, life changing discussions like this one. I do my best to combat this by getting as much information as I can and trying to figure out the best way to do the things that I really want in life.

Thank you for the input and the luck, it's greatly appreciated.

Natalie

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Permalink Reply by David Weakley on October 25, 2009 at 9:34pm

first get in with a local station and get some hands on and then go to your local tech school and go through the module one firefighter 1 class and if so depending on your local station and counties protocols of if you need to be whats called NPQ 1 certified thats what im doing now and im in my second semester firefighter 2 which is the second stage of the fire class and its fun. I was never involved with anything like this and i can't wait for my first call and to one day get on with a full time station. Good luck let me know if you need some help and whatever i can do.

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Permalink Reply by THOMAS A. STOFFER on November 10, 2009 at 12:32am

I would say go to the college and uptain ur certs. I went through that many colleges or tech centers offer different classes that you can enroll in, many times you can find a class that works with your time frame. The teachers you will have should be able to communicate on the txt book information on firefighting. A good thing to do is to ASK lots of questions and be very open minded to whats going on around you. Strive to be a good student and follow instuctions, and remeber its a team effort so help out those who are not as strong in the class. we are all brothers out here, plus when your doing hands on class ff safety and survival is really important !!!! remeber to use all of your senses during that time trust me good luck, have fun with it and Be safe

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