Should a high-schooler who is enthusiastic about firefighting go to a college or university or immediately start as a career firefighter? As an educator and retired firefighter – with a messy personal academic journey – I have answered this question dozens of times.
OPTION 1: GO TO COLLEGE AND EXPLORE DIFFERENT OPPORTUNITIES
If the parents have saved and sacrificed so their child can get a bachelor degree, I recommend that the high-schooler take full advantage of this life-enhancing opportunity. The four or five-year investment at the university will pay off better in the 50+ years you will be active than the benefit you get by starting your firefighting career now.
- It is a unique experience that cannot be duplicated when you are on the job and working to complete the degree. The journey is valuable.
- You have the least amount of distractions. No children, mortgage, part-time job or studying for a promotional exam. I know hundreds of firefighters who stopped their academic efforts when “real life” interfered.
- You have the time in a generally safe space to explore other interests and opportunities that are not as easily available in the real world.
While fire departments are finally hiring since the 2008 Recession, your lifetime opportunities exponentially increase by getting the degree now. While at college, you can find your dream firefighting job.
During your second and third year of college, research where you want to live and which department you want to work for. Look at the jurisdiction’s website and find the hiring information. Look at their annual budget, are they increasing or shrinking? Call the recruiting/hiring office to understand all of the requirements.
Visit these departments during your summer break. Go to a bunch of fire stations. Get an application package. If needed, prepare for the Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT). If it tremendously helps your hiring chances, obtain some level of state or National Registry emergency medical technician credential.
When you have started the hiring process, maintain a digital log or notebook of who you talked to (with date/time) and what they said. Pay attention to deadlines and meet them.
OPTION 2: HIGH SCHOOL FIREFIGHTER PROGRAM
High school fire science programs were originally aimed at recruiting and training new members of the community to serve as volunteer firefighters, like in Calvert County, Maryland. In the last few years, larger fire departments have partnered with the school system to develop a diversified pool of firefighter candidates from the community, like Los Angeles City. Either way, these programs are found in the technical or vocational career section of the school system.
Unfortunately, many high school firefighter programs do not lead to a guaranteed job as a career firefighter. Graduates of these programs have relevant work experience and certifications that the fire department supporting the high school program should recognize.
OPTION 3: DEVELOP A VOCATIONAL SKILL
Some fire departments will not hire until the candidate is 21 years old. Instead of doing interfacility transports as a teenaged Emergency Medical Technician on a private ambulance, learn a skill that can serve you well in your fire service career. Becoming skilled at labor trades that are in demand like welding, carpentry, cooking or electricity. Mike Rowe makes a strong argument on the fantastic career opportunities with skilled labor jobs.
OPTION 4: JOIN THE ARMED SERVICES
Joining a branch of the military requires a minimum of four years active duty and two years of reservist duty. You can develop a technical or labor skill while in the service as well as a powerful set of self-discipline and leadership skills. As a veteran, you often receive preferential hiring consideration for local, state or federal jobs. Go to https://www.usa.gov/join-military for more information
What about my volunteer Firefighter I training?
California, Rhode Island, and Florida require candidates to obtain state-specific Firefighter credentials before applying for a job. That training is usually completed at an academy affiliated with a college.
Most large departments will hire you as a candidate and pay you to obtain your firefighter training in their academy. Some communities will utilize your volunteer training and experience to complete an accelerated career recruit school.
Regardless, the skills and abilities from the volunteer training and service have significant value if the student pursues an emergency service career.
How about paramedic certification?
in the 1990s and 2000s, the quickest path for the white male who was a non-veteran to get hired was to obtain a National Registry paramedic credential. There is a diminished interest by some large fire departments to preferentially hire as many paramedic-credentialed candidates they can find. In addition, the process to obtain a paramedic credential takes more time under the 2009 National EMS Educational Standards.
THE 25 AND 50 YEAR PERSPECTIVES
Municipal fire departments continue to hire based on their 100-year-old practice of hiring a young and physically capable candidate and training them to become a firefighter.
This vocational model produces an entry-level firefighter who is proficient in skills but subject to close company officer supervision until the experience and skill sets evolve. Everyone starts at this level, even those with advanced formal education.
The United States Fire Administration’s National Professional Development Model assumes a career of continuing professional and technical development.
This model has the firefighter obtaining an Associates degree up to the position of a 1st-line supervisor and a Bachelor’s degree when working through 1st line supervisors to accomplish the department’s goals as a manager. Those seeking senior administrative positions will obtain a master’s.
This process will get you from your 20’s to your 50’s. You will probably be active for another 20-30 years, so what is next? Option 1 plants the seeds for your second “career” where you can return to those areas of interest you explored as an undergraduate. Perhaps you have maintained an avocation or hobby that you are ready to devote more time to.
As a parent or academic advisor, it is hard to make a 50 year plan interesting to a 16-year-old. Their experiences and their brain physiology have not developed enough to appreciate the value of long-range planning.
There was one meeting years ago that still makes me wonder about the outcome:
I was the community college fire science program director, talking to a rising high school senior and his single-parent mom. The kid was short, pale and scrawny with no emergency service experience. Based on his internet-only research he was going to start volunteering at a very busy Prince George’s County (Maryland) fire station that ran more shootings than auto accidents with entrapments. I expressed my concern and encouraged him to go to a much closer fire station in northern Virginia that was busy but safer. I wonder what that high schooler decided.
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Featured image is from the 2017 graduation ceremonies of the Fairfax County (VA) Fire and Rescue High School Firefighter Program