Electrical Apprentice I Lab-OJT (Non-Union)

Course Description

Electrical Apprentice I Lab-OJT gives non-union apprenticeship students practical experience applying foundational electrical concepts, including basic electricity fundamentals, installation techniques, safety through Community First Aid & Safety training, and DC Theory.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, BCA is the Building Construction Apprenticeship prefix, the L suffix marks this as the on-the-job training component, and the 0000-level number marks it as PSAV clock-hour instruction. Daytona State publishes it at 679.8 clock hours, offered fall, with BCA0350 as corequisite. ⚠ It carries no college credit.

The scale is worth noticing: 679.8 hours of on-the-job training against 72 hours in the classroom. The apprenticeship is overwhelmingly a job with school attached, and what a first-term apprentice learns is less about electricity than about how a construction site works and how to be useful on one.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Apply classroom instruction to real installations on a job site.
• Work safely under the direction of a journeyman electrician.
• Apply personal protective equipment and site safety practice consistently.
• Apply lockout-tagout and verify de-energisation before working.
• Recognise unsafe conditions and report or refuse them appropriately.
• Use hand and power tools of the trade correctly and safely.
• Read and work from construction drawings and specifications.
• Install work to the requirements of the adopted electrical code.
• Produce workmanlike installations meeting trade standards.
• Work productively as part of a crew and coordinate with other trades.
• Communicate clearly with supervisors, other trades, and customers.
• Take direction and correction professionally.
• Manage materials and minimise waste.
• Meet productivity expectations appropriate to your level.
• Identify and report installation problems rather than concealing them.
• Record on-the-job training hours accurately and on time.
• Record exposure to the required work processes.
• Demonstrate punctuality, attendance, and reliability.
• Demonstrate professional conduct on a customer's premises.
• Ask effective questions and seek instruction actively.
• Identify basic electrical materials and components on site.
• Assist with basic wiring installations under direction.
• Apply first aid and CPR training if required.
• Learn site layout, procedures, and crew roles.

Optional Outcomes

• Observe or assist in work outside your usual assignment.
• Participate in a pre-job safety briefing and toolbox talk.
• Assist in troubleshooting under supervision.
• Observe inspection and commissioning of completed work.
• Assist a less experienced apprentice.
• Track progress toward the required work-process categories.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Applying classroom instruction on site
• Working under journeyman direction
• Site safety and PPE
• Lockout-tagout and verification
• Recognising unsafe conditions
• Tools of the trade
• Working from drawings
• Installing to code
• Workmanship standards
• Crew and trade coordination
• Site communication
• Receiving direction
• Material management
• Productivity expectations
• Reporting problems
• Recording OJT hours
• Recording work processes
• Punctuality and reliability
• Professional conduct
• Asking effective questions
• Materials and components on site
• Assisting with basic wiring
• First aid and CPR
• Site layout and crew roles

Optional Topics

• Work outside the usual assignment
• Safety briefings
• Supervised troubleshooting
• Inspection and commissioning
• Assisting newer apprentices
• Work-process tracking

Resources & Tools

• Your NEC code book — the correct adopted edition, tabbed and carried. The most important object in this trade.
• Your hour record and work-process log — keep your own copy. It proves your progress toward completion.
• NFPA (nfpa.org) — publisher of the NEC and NFPA 70E; free read-only online access to codes.
• NFPA 70E — the electrical safety standard covering arc flash, boundaries, and personal protective equipment.
• Ugly's Electrical References — the pocket reference every electrician carries.
• NCCER (nccer.org) — the curriculum and credentialing system most non-union construction training uses; its records are portable between employers.
• Independent Electrical Contractors (ieci.org) and Associated Builders and Contractors (abc.org) — the principal merit-shop apprenticeship sponsors nationally.
• Mike Holt Enterprises (mikeholt.com) — widely used NEC training and exam preparation, with a substantial free video library.
• Florida Building Code (floridabuilding.org) — free; shows how the NEC is adopted and amended in Florida.
• Florida DBPR (myfloridalicense.com) — free; the authority on electrical contractor licensing.
• OSHA construction standards (osha.gov) — free; subpart K covers electrical.
• A good multimeter and a non-contact tester you trust — a meter that lies to you is worse than no meter.
• Your journeyman and your foreman — the most valuable resource in the programme.

Career Pathways

• Electrician — SOC 47-2111; consistently among the largest and best-paid skilled trades.
• Journeyman electrician — the credential this apprenticeship produces.
• Commercial and residential electrical construction — the core of merit-shop electrical work.
• Service and troubleshooting work — frequently the fastest route to responsibility in a smaller contractor.
• Maintenance electrician in manufacturing, hospitals, hotels, theme parks, and government facilities — salaried with benefits, a very large Florida sector.
• Motor controls, instrumentation, and industrial automation — a technical, well-paid speciality.
• Low-voltage, fire alarm, security, and structured cabling — separate licence categories with their own demand.
• Solar photovoltaic installation — a growing Florida sector.
• Utility and line work — SOC 49-9051; separate training, higher risk, higher pay.
• Foreman, general foreman, and superintendent — the site progression from the tools.
• Estimator, project manager, or electrical inspector — routes off the tools using the same knowledge.
• Electrical contracting — ⚠ a state-licensed activity requiring documented experience.

Special Information

⚠ The first year is about becoming someone worth teaching

• Nobody expects a first-year apprentice to know anything. What they expect is that you turn up, work hard, listen, and stay safe.
• Reliability is everything now, and it determines the quality of instruction you receive.
• Do the material handling and clean-up cheerfully. It is how apprentices earn the right to be taught the interesting work.
• Buy the tools you are asked for and look after them. A tidy, complete tool pouch is noticed immediately.
• Say plainly when you have not done something before, and watch experienced hands before touching anything unfamiliar.
• ⚠ In the non-union track your hours depend on one employer. Being the apprentice a contractor wants to keep through a slow period is worth real thought from the first week.
• Start your notebook and your hour record now, in week one.

Union and non-union registered apprenticeship — what actually differs

Daytona State runs two parallel registered electrical apprenticeships, and this course belongs to the non-union (merit shop) track. Both are legitimate routes to the same trade, and the distinction is worth understanding factually rather than as a matter of allegiance.

• Both are registered apprenticeships recognised through the Florida Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Labor, and both produce a nationally portable completion credential.
• The sponsor differs. Union programmes are typically run by a joint labour-management committee; non-union programmes are typically sponsored by a contractor association or by an individual employer.
• Employment works differently. Union apprentices are generally dispatched to signatory contractors through the local; non-union apprentices are generally employed directly by a single contractor, and your progress is tied to that employer keeping you on.
• Wages and benefits are structured differently — collectively bargained scales and benefit funds on one side, employer-set pay and benefits on the other. Compare the whole package, not the hourly rate alone.
• The curriculum is broadly comparable, and in this institution's case the two tracks share their early content closely and diverge in the later levels — see the sequence note.
• The licence is the same. Journeyman and contractor licensing in Florida does not distinguish between the tracks; what matters is documented hours, completion, and the examination.
• ⚠ Choose on the specifics available to you — which sponsor is accepting applicants, which contractors are hiring, the wage progression, and the quality of the training — rather than on general reputation. Ask to speak to current apprentices in either programme before deciding.

The Daytona State non-union electrical apprenticeship sequence

The non-union track runs classroom courses paired with Lab-OJT courses carrying the on-the-job training hours. Levels 1 to 8 use the BCA035n numbers and levels 9 to 12 the BCA034n numbers:

⚠ Two catalog points worth knowing. First, BCA0340 is titled "Electrical Apprentice 9 (Union)" although it sits in the non-union number range and its own paired laboratory BCA0340L is titled "(Non-Union)" — the "(Union)" appears to be an error. Second, BCA0355L is published at 639 clock hours rather than the 639.9 used by every other summer term in this prefix. Both figures above are the catalog's own; confirm with the programme.

Classroom hours change partway through the track — the earlier levels are published at 72 clock hours and levels 9 to 11 at 99. OJT hours generally track the term, with fall and spring at 679.8 and summer at 639.9.

⚠ The two tracks share their early curriculum and diverge later. Non-union levels 1 to 5 cover substantially the same content as the union track's, but from level 7 the emphasis differs — the non-union track moves toward fire alarm, hazardous locations, auxiliary power, generators, and special occupancies, where the union track covers grounding and bonding, structured cabling, and motor controls in those terms. Neither is a subset of the other, and a transfer between tracks would need the sponsor's assessment.

⚠⚠ On-the-job training hours are the binding constraint — not your grades

• A registered apprenticeship has two separate obligations — related classroom instruction and on-the-job training hours — and neither substitutes for the other.
• You can pass every class and still not complete if you have not accumulated the required OJT hours. The classroom courses run 72 to 99 hours; the OJT courses run several hundred.
• Hours accrue only while you are employed by a participating contractor. ⚠ If you are laid off, your hours stop — and in the non-union track, where you are typically employed by a single contractor rather than dispatched, losing that job can stall your apprenticeship entirely. Tell the sponsor immediately.
• Breadth is required, not just total hours. Apprenticeship standards specify work processes — categories of work you must actually be exposed to, such as conduit installation, terminations, motor controls, service work, and troubleshooting. Years spent on one task do not satisfy the requirement.
• ⚠ Ask for the work you are missing. This matters particularly if your employer specialises — a contractor doing only residential rough-in cannot give you service or controls hours. Raise it early; nobody will notice the gap for you.
• Document your hours accurately and on time, and keep your own copy of everything. Employers change and records are lost; your file is what protects your progress.
• Report hours honestly. Falsifying an hour record is grounds for removal and it undermines the credential for everyone.

⚠ How to actually learn on the job

• The journeyman you work with is the most valuable resource in the programme.
• Ask why, not just how. Learning that a connection is made a particular way is worth little; learning why, and when it would be wrong, is the trade.
• Ask at the right moment — not mid-task on something difficult, not during troubleshooting under pressure. Knowing when to ask is itself professional judgement.
• Watch experienced hands work. Layout, sequence, and how someone organises a task before starting are learned by observation and rarely explained.
• Take correction without arguing. How you receive it is noticed and reported on.
• Say plainly when you have not done something before. Bluffing on a live electrical task is dangerous and it is spotted immediately.
• Do the unglamorous work well. Material handling and clean-up are how apprentices earn the right to be taught.
• Show up early, every day. In this trade reliability outranks talent.
• Keep a notebook — what you learned, what you got wrong, code articles you looked up. It becomes your journeyman examination revision.
• Connect the classroom to the job deliberately. Look for this term's content in what you are installing, and ask about it.

⚠⚠ The National Electrical Code is the book you will use for your whole career

• The NEC (NFPA 70) governs electrical installation in the United States, and in Florida it is adopted into the Florida Building Code with state amendments — so what governs here is the NEC as Florida has adopted it.
• ⚠ It is revised on a three-year cycle and jurisdictions adopt editions at different times. The edition in force where you are working is the one that governs, frequently not the newest.
• Learn to navigate it, not memorise it. Nobody memorises the NEC; the professional skill is finding the applicable article quickly and reading it precisely — and that is what journeyman examinations actually test.
• Tab your code book and use it constantly. Examinations are typically open-book under time pressure, so speed of lookup is the skill being assessed.
• Read the exact words. "Shall" and "shall be permitted" differ, and an exception can reverse the rule above it.
• Local amendments matter. A correct-by-the-book installation can still fail inspection under a local requirement.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies — verify the current adopted edition rather than relying on any course guide.

⚠⚠ Arc flash and shock — and the apprentice's particular exposure

• Electricity gives no second chance, and apprentices are at particular risk because they are least able to recognise a dangerous situation and least confident about refusing one.
• ⚠⚠ Arc flash is not shock. An arcing fault is an explosion — temperatures several times hotter than the surface of the sun, a pressure blast, molten metal, and permanent hearing damage. It burns through ordinary clothing instantly and synthetic fabric melts into skin.
• Arc-rated clothing is not optional near energised equipment, and cotton is not arc-rated. NFPA 70E defines the boundaries, the risk assessment, and the required protection.
• De-energise wherever possible. Working energised requires justification, a written procedure, and permission — and schedule pressure is not a justification, though it is exactly when incidents happen.
• Lock out, tag out, and verify yourself. Test the meter on a known live source, test the conductor, then test the meter again. A failed meter reading zero has killed people.
• Your own lock, your own key. Never remove another person's lock and never let anyone remove yours.
• ⚠⚠ You may refuse unsafe work. An apprentice told to do something they believe is unsafe should say so — to the journeyman, the foreman, and if necessary the sponsor. A good contractor supports that. No schedule is worth an injury.
• Falls kill more construction workers than anything else, and electricians spend a great deal of time on ladders, lifts, and scaffolds.
• ⚠ Florida heat is a genuine hazard — attics, unconditioned buildings, outdoor summer work. Confusion in the heat is an emergency, not tiredness, and the person affected is usually the last to notice.
• Report every injury and near miss, including your own mistakes.

⚠⚠ Florida electrical licensing — journeyman is county, contracting is state

• ⚠ Journeyman electrician licensing in Florida is generally handled at county or municipal level, not by the state. Requirements, examinations, and reciprocity vary, and a journeyman card from one county may not be recognised in the next.
• Electrical contracting is licensed by the state under Chapter 489, Part II, Florida Statutes, through DBPR and the Electrical Contractors' Licensing Board.
• Licensing does not distinguish between union and non-union apprenticeship. What matters is documented hours, completion, and the examination.
• You may work as an electrician for a licensed contractor without holding a contractor licence yourself.
• Contracting on your own account without the required licence is an offence with escalating penalties.
• Contractor licensure requires documented experience, examination, financial responsibility evidence, and insurance. The realistic sequence is apprenticeship, then journeyman, then contractor.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies. Verify with DBPR and with the county where you will work.

⚠⚠ This is a PSAV clock-hour apprenticeship course — it carries no college credit

• The leading zero in the course number is the signal. Under the Florida Statewide Course Numbering System, a 0000-level number denotes postsecondary adult vocational (PSAV) instruction, measured in clock hours rather than semester credit hours. These courses carry zero college credit.
• ⚠ A catalog may display the clock-hour figure under a heading that reads "credit hours." It is not credits — a 0000-level course showing 679.8 is 679.8 hours of instruction or on-the-job training.
• PSAV hours do not transfer as college credit to an associate or bachelor's degree, and they do not satisfy general education requirements.
• What this programme produces is a journeyman electrician — a nationally portable, well-paid skilled trade credential earned while working and being paid, without student debt.
• Some institutions offer articulation from apprenticeship completion into a related associate or construction management degree. ⚠ These arrangements are institution-specific and change — get it in writing before assuming.
• Financial aid rules differ for clock-hour programmes, though apprenticeship tuition is frequently paid or subsidised by the sponsor or employer.

BCA0350L is 679.8 clock hours, offered Fall at Daytona State, and is the on-the-job training component of level 1 of the non-union electrical apprenticeship. ⚠ Clock hours carry no college credit.

Classroom instruction and on-the-job training are separate obligations and neither substitutes for the other. Keep your own copy of your hour record.