How an Ypsi high schooler found “direction” in skilled trades after taking CTE classes

This article is part of Concentrate’s Voices of Youth series, which features stories written by Washtenaw County youth with guidance from Concentrate staff mentors, as well as adult-written stories spotlighting local youth perspective. In this installment, adult writer Sarah Rigg interviews student Dylan Presley about his interest in skilled trades and career and technical education.

When Dylan Presley was younger, he wanted to play professional sports – not go into skilled trades, let alone become a sought-after speaker on the topic. But the Ypsilanti Community High School (YCHS) senior found his calling in career and technical education (CTE) classes, and he expects to go into the trades after he graduates high school. He has spoken or given presentations at both a county-wide CTE summit and the statewide Michigan Career Education Conference in Grand Rapids.

“I was never really good in school, but I found something in CTE that helped me find a sense of direction,” Presley says.

It wasn’t a sure thing that Presley would pursue the trades, even though he comes from a family of engineers. 

“My father, my grandfather, and my grandmother are all engineers. My father is currently working as a general manager,” Presley says. 

Presley was resistant to following the same path. 

“I wanted to be a basketball player, or maybe football, but height wasn’t my thing,” he jokes. “I wanted to do something more up my alley, so I started talking to my dad, and he started telling me about the trades.”

Presley says he trusted his father to steer him right, so he decided to “see what it’s all about.”

He says he felt “lucky” to have a mentor in YCHS teacher John Kim. Presley has taken various science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classes with Kim since ninth grade, including biology and chemistry.

Before getting involved in CTE, Presley says he “wasn’t the best student.” But the rigorous structure of Kim’s classes helped him improve and feel that the work was easier.

“I was lucky he was able to give me a lot of opportunities, ones I was never able to get before, in CTE. I’ve earned over 50 [tooling] certifications in Mr. Kim’s class from junior year until now,” Presley says.

Kim uses the site ToolingU.com to help students level up their foundational engineering skills and earn state-recognized certifications in topics such as precision measurement or working with tools like calipers.

Presley says union members also come into the classroom to do some hands-on teaching with students.

“Last year, the pipefitters came in and we learned pipefitting, soldering, and how to cut and size pipe,” Presley says. “There’s a lot of precision measurement with that.”

He says those types of collaborations are “great opportunities,” and businesses that work with YCHS will sometimes accept a student directly out of high school into an apprenticeship program.

Presley says he feels he’s gotten a great deal of experience in STEM, especially engineering, between school and his father’s mentorship. He says his father, who has moved into a more administrative role as a general manager now, has taught him about “entrepreneurship and being a leader.”

“They’re teaching me a lot of things and making me more mature as a person,” Presley says.

Presley says he is interested in pursuing a trade while also taking college classes to make sure he likes the field he’s getting into. Once he feels confident, he can pursue college degrees and rise into higher positions, perhaps to be a general manager at a plant.

“I want to eventually get to the point where I won’t have to work with my hands a lot. I’ll use my brains to do a lot of problem-solving,” Presley says.

In the best-case scenario, Presley says he’d love to be a robotics controls engineer.

“I love robotics right now. Being able to program a robot is very amusing to me, like a video game. I like the process of programming,” he says.

Presley says he’s become a CTE proponent in part because he feels the trades will always be needed.

“Everyone’s going to need plumbing. That’s a worldwide job that’s not going anywhere,” he says.

To his fellow students who have thought about CTE but weren’t sure if they were interested, Presley says he’d ask if they know college students who have paid high tuition rates only to change majors several times.

“I want to get out of high school and get into an apprenticeship. I’ll make money and get paid to learn instead of going to college and paying to learn,” Presley says.