Keaton has been working as an apprentice electrician with Camson (and Callahan) and has been taking the classes and tests to move up to Journeyman status. That has two parts, residential Journeyman and Full Journeyman. Keaton had completed the necessary requirements for the first a while back, and had continued moving toward full status, studying for the exams, finishing up the hours and schooling. He had some funny stories to tell as he wrapped it up these last few weeks, and I asked him to write it all up in his own words. So here's Keaton's Journeyman journey ...
When I took the residential tests, I don’t think I was that nervous. Probably because I didn’t fully grasp how difficult the tests could be. Somehow I was able to pass all of them first try.
The practical was pretty easy. The 3 way / 4 way and doorbell were easy because I do those every day at work. The torque wrench was also easy because at that point in time, Cal and I had got our own torque wrenches to start using on equipment in the field. The only tricky one was the motor control / swamp cooler and that’s because it’s what I was least familiar with. Houses nowadays don’t have swamp coolers typically, but this is one of the only semi-complicated motors you would ever see in a house, so that’s why it was included on the test. But even that wasn’t that hard after looking up some YouTube videos.
Then I took the code test. Looking back, I should’ve scheduled the theory test and then the code test. I think theory is easier than code in general. That way the tests are being taken easiest to hardest, in hopes for a snowball effect. The code test is 80 questions in 180 minutes. Roughly 2 min and 15 seconds per question. That’s a tight window. Especially because, for each question, you have to find the answer in the book, so flipping through the pages takes some time, and you have to remember to use the correct formulas, look at exceptions, etc… I finished through to the 80th question and I had 30 minutes left, but I was unsure on about 20 questions. So I took the time to double check those and the rest of my answers, leaving me with 5 minutes left and 5 questions still “flagged.” I was able to find 1 more answer and then I submitted. They emailed me back the scores within a few minutes. 76%, 61/80 - barely passed.
Next was theory, scheduled a couple days later. Figured I’d want a day in between to let my brain relax. That backfired because my buddy Marko texted me saying it was the last day to take our midterm test for school. I definitely forgot about that. I had to revert my brain into everything I was learning at that time in school, which was way more specific than code and theory. So we took the test, aced it, and then the next day it was time for theory.
I didn’t know what to expect on theory because the topics were very vague. Unlike code, which tells you how many questions are on box fill, or grounding and bonding, or definitions and general requirements, the theory topics just said voltage, amperage, power, resistance, and voltage drop. I knew the equation for voltage drop so I wasn’t worried about that so much, but I didn’t know what kind of questions the other topics would be. Turns out I was worried for nothing, because most of those questions were basic ohms law or terminology questions. Either I knew the answer off the top of my head, or it was a very simple equation that I had memorized. I finished the theory tests with over an hour to spare, and I scored 94%, 57/60.
With that, the resi tests were over and I could relax again.
That was almost a couple years, so fast forwarding to now where I had to take the full journeyman tests, I had quite a different testing experience. I was a lot more nervous this time around. Probably because I had taken the tests before, but also because I knew they were going to be harder. For the practical, I’ve got to bend two pieces of conduit and wire a motor control with a relay, neither of which I do at work. And for the code, I have to incorporate everything else I learned in third and fourth year. AND remember to change my formulas whenever they’re incorporating commercial wiring instead of residential. I didn’t think the theory test would be that different or that hard, seeing that I got a high score in the resi theory test. So I decided to take that first.
My full journeyman tests, there was a lot more things that happened. So get ready.
- CODE: Right before taking the test, I was super nervous. I shouldn’t have been, because I was feeling good on the topics, I knew I had crushed it before, and I studied, so everything should be fine. I got 10 questions in and I realized I severely overestimated this test. It was already way harder than the resi. I wasn’t even sure about half the questions at this point. I figured I wouldn’t finish an hour early this time, but whatever the question is, I’ll figure it out one way or another. I get to the end and I’m feeling a lot better. The first 10 questions were some of the harder ones. I go back and double check all my answers, figure out the equations for the ones I didn’t know, and submitted. This time, no response. I’ve heard sometimes it takes a little while for them to score it, so I just went to bed, very nervous. I was pretty confident I passed, probably not as high of a score as last time, but that’s okay. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw they sent my score. I couldn’t wait til later to see, so I opened it then. FAILED. That. Sucks. It was 2:00 in the morning and I felt like crap. I didn’t fall asleep for two more hours, and then I went to work. I was pretty depressed that morning, but also angry because the score they sent me didn’t actually tell me my score. Not a percentage, not a number out of 50. It should say that, so I called them that morning and asked if they could find my score and tell me. They said they’ll work on it and send me another email. So the day went on, and I was a sad boy, but then they emailed me back in the early afternoon. I figured it had my score on it, so I checked to see how bad I did. 88%, 44/50, PASS. It took me a second, but I quickly realized that it was a technical difficulty. That was my score, and I did actually pass. No more sad boy. That made my day. I had already told a couple people I failed, so I texted them back, “JK I actually passed. There was this thing, blah blah blah, yay.” And with that done, we got the snowball rolling once again. 1 down, 2 to go.
- PRACTICAL: I scheduled the practical next. Figured it’ll be harder than the last practical, but not as hard as the code test. Marko and I had been practicing bending a bunch of conduit in the garage for our labs, so we did it once more before my test. We looked at the motor control boards we wired at the labs and I figured that’s about as much as I can study for that. When I got there, the proctor let me pick which task to do first. That was very nice of him because I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do the conduit first and be all sweaty for the next two. I chose the motor control, he gave me the line diagram, and clicked the timer. One thing that made me nervous was that in the past, the proctor lets you choose which line diagram to wire. This time, the proctor said that wasn’t an option. Everyone has to do the ice cube relay. I didn’t like the sound of that because the ice cube relay is the harder variant for me. I looked at the line diagram, started wiring, and finished with plenty of time to spare. Called the proctor over, we plugged it in, everything worked, onto the next. I did the transformer next. I was not worried about this task at all. It’s color coding. You memorize the colors in the right order and you wire it. I did it in 30 seconds, called the proctor over, he said it’s good, onto the next.
- CONDUIT: Conduit was last. We had to bend a 4 point saddle and a 3 point saddle. Those bends were exactly what Marko and I were practicing, so I was happy to see it. They had rolling box offsets which kinda sucked, but I figured it wouldn’t be that bad. I did the 4 point saddle. That looked pretty good and didn’t take a lot of time. Then I did the 3 point. I don’t know how this happened, but when I went to cut my pipe to length, I forgot that I flipped it around. So I ended up cutting off the wrong end, which in turn ruined my whole pipe. My saddle was a few inches off center and there was no easy way to fix it. At the point, my heart sank and I accepted failure. That was a critical mistake that I figured I could laugh at a year from now. But I didn’t want to not have a pipe to present, so I decided I’m going re bend this pipe and just try to get it to fit on the board as best I can. Then, in my mind, I didn’t completely give up. I un-did all my bends and this pipe was looking wonky. It wasn’t straight, it was doglegged, and kinked. But beggars can’t be choosers. I made all my new marks and bent the saddled correctly this time, but it still wasn’t looking great. I spent a few minutes just tweaking it by eye, and with 10 seconds left, I made one final cut and placed it on the board. It fit, but didn’t look good. To pass this test, the main things you need to do is have 1/4”-3/4” clearance from the obstruction, the ends of the saddle have to be touching the board, and it has to fit. I stepped back and looked at my 3 point and realized it actually met all those standards. Despite all the kinks and it not being level, I thought there was a very small chance this could actually pass. I sat down with one of the other guys that was taking the tests and we were chatting while the last guy was finishing his two conduits. The proctor started grading my pipes. Apparently, there’s an algorithm on his computer that he inputs the numbers he got from my pipes. The clearances, how many kinks it has, how off center it is, etc… He clicked enter, then looked at me with the faintest smile and nod. I pretended I didn’t see that. There was just no way that I actually passed. I was fully prepared to go home and schedule this test again asap. The other guy finished his pipes, so we all started talking while the proctor was grading theirs. Normally when you’re done, you just leave and you get an email within an hour that has your scores, but the proctor said it was a Saturday so no one was in the office. They probably won’t send us our scores for a couple days. But, he said he could just tell us our scores there and now if we wanted. So I said let’s hear it. He said I passed motor control, I passed transformer, and my 4 point passed. I knew all that. Moment of truth… he said my 3 point barely passed.
I actually jumped, I didn’t believe it. He was laughing too because he said it’s the worst pipe he’s ever seen that passed. He said if I literally had one more kink on the pipe, or it was slightly more off level, or if I was another 1/16” off, it would’ve failed. So that was that. I stayed to hear the other guys scores, they both passed all the tests too. They also had a couple mistakes, but we all made it work. It was a pretty fun time. The proctor said this was one of the most fun groups he’s watched. 2 out of 3 done. Onto the next.
I think I was the most stressed for the code test, but I did study a lot for it. Even a couple days before the test I felt ready. I had a game plan. I didn’t want to just have 30 minutes at the end to work through all the hard questions. I wanted a lot more time, so instead of limiting myself to 2 minutes per question, I did 1 minute. The hard thing with doing that is that it can be very, very difficult to flip through the pages and find the answer within a minute. But I thought it would be worth it to have a ton of time at the end for the more difficult questions and checking my work. Taking the test, I actually was able to keep up with that pace. Better than I thought. I knew a ton of the answers off the top of my head, and I was able to find a lot more within that 1 minute. I was cruising. I eventually slowed down at question 60 because I had more time than I thought I was going to have. I made it to question 80, I had about 25 flags, 80 minutes left. I just relaxed. It wasn’t over, but I felt like I set myself up perfectly that there was no way I wouldn’t pass. I burned through 10-15 flags in 20 minutes, spent another 20 minutes double checking all my other answers, then another 20 minutes on 5 of the harder questions, and I felt like I was golden. I figured I would pass, but in my head I was hoping to get a 90%. That would be cool. I didn’t think it was very realistic because most of the time I hear people taking this test? they get anywhere in the 80s. I submitted, got my score a few minutes later, 95%, 76/80, PASS.
I saved the hardest for last and it ended up being the easiest. I’m pretty stoked that I passed them all first try again. And I’m happy it’s all done. Time to relax.
