New WCC program offers professional welding training one weekend day per week

This fall Washtenaw Community College (WCC) will launch a new part-time cohort program aimed at making welding education more accessible. Dubbed Weekend Welders, the program allows students to earn up to two welding certificates and an associate's degree by attending classes just one day a week over 11 semesters, opening the door to careers in the skilled trades without a traditional full-time school schedule.

"From our advisory boards and needs assessments, we found that there’s a strong demand for individuals to go into any of the skilled trades – but especially welding," says Eva Samulski,
dean of career and technical education at WCC. "This new option will allow an individual to get a degree by just coming to school one day a week."

Samulski says this new format has been designed for students to start entry-level welding jobs as early as fall 2026, when the first cohort of students will earn their first of two professional certificates. Students may continue beyond that point to earn an advanced certificate and an associate's degree in applied science and welding technology, or just stop after they earn their first certificate. 

"What’s cool about the weekend welding program is it gives each individual student the opportunity to figure out where to get off the bus," says WCC Welding Faculty Co-Chair Alexander Pazkowski. "Students can stop at a certification and enter a career, and then if they want to come back, they can use what they learned at work to be better at school and vice versa."

Pazkowski notes that an ongoing agreement between WCC and Wayne State University’s welding program also allows associate's degree-seekers the opportunity to transfer credits and attain a bachelor’s degree in welding engineering technology. 

"In Michigan, you have a ton of different avenues to take with a welding certification or degree," Pazkowski says. "We don’t have that problem of needing to teach pointed skills for students to enter a specific market. We’re providing welders with a fundamental skillset that employers can take and build off of."

Pazkowski says WCC’s welding lab has "at least 60 open hours every week," which allows all welding students the opportunity to practice their skills with industry-standard equipment and a variety of "different instructors and lab techs." He says the open lab hours are a great opportunity for Weekend Welders to practice their skills.

Samulski explains that while this new part-time option for the welding program is a "pilot" for WCC, she hopes that it will be well received enough by students to expand it in future semesters. She says that the goal would be to include apprenticeship opportunities for Weekend Welders students to get work experience while still enrolled, and to eventually provide similarly flexible part-time options for other WCC skilled trades and health care programs.

Weekend Welders launches Aug. 25 for WCC’s fall semester. More information about the program and links to apply can be found here.

"Our shop is built in a way that maximizes each student’s potential to be the most qualified possible as they leave this program," Pazkowski says. "If we can make this trade as accessible as possible to as many students as possible, they will all be successful in the end."