{"id":6512,"date":"2026-05-17T15:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T15:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=6512"},"modified":"2026-05-17T15:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T15:18:28","slug":"this-community-college-student-is-americas-entrant-in-the-olympics-of-skilled-trades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=6512","title":{"rendered":"This community college student is America’s entrant in the Olympics of skilled trades"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Growing up, Mikala Sposito dreamed of being a trailblazer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to be the first female to do something,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That dream is about to be realized.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old from Dexter, Michigan, will be the first woman to represent the United States in welding at the WorldSkills Competition in China.<\/p>\n

Sposito, a student at Washtenaw Community College, earned the coveted spot by winning the USA Weld Trials in Huntsville, Alabama, earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very, very close the whole time, but I was the one who made it to Shanghai,\u201d Sposito said.<\/p>\n

Described as the Olympics of the skilled trades, WorldSkills determines the globe\u2019s best in technical disciplines that include construction, information technology, manufacturing and robotics.<\/p>\n

And, of course, welding.<\/p>\n

Sposito is the sixth Washtenaw Community College student to qualify in WorldSkills history. WCC has produced more WorldSkills welding alums than any other school in the United States, the Ann Arbor college said. One of them, Alex Pazkowski, who finished second in 2013, is Sposito\u2019s instructor and mentor.<\/p>\n

He accompanied her to the\u00a0American championships\u00a0in Alabama and also will be her coach at a series of competitions that will take them from Canada to Australia in the months leading up to WorldSkills in September.<\/p>\n

Add to that 80 hours of welding practice per week at WCC, and Sposito has \u201ca long, hard road\u201d ahead of her, Pazkowski said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the day, if you\u2019re successful, it\u2019s gonna open up all kinds of doors for you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

She will be evaluated on technical execution and craftsmanship under stiff time constraints and stringent international standards.<\/p>\n

Sposito said she\u2019s looking forward to putting up her skills against the world\u2019s best. And traveling abroad, which she hasn\u2019t done previously.<\/p>\n

As for the \u201cfirst\u201d aspect, she said: \u201cI don\u2019t see the gender aspect of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, welding doesn\u2019t take any brute strength or anything. It\u2019s actually very fine and precise.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she does recognize that women are minority participants in a discipline she fell in love with at age 10. And if her world-class success joining together metals using heat and pressure helps pave the way for future welders, then all the better.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing the first female to do it is very cool,\u201d said Sposito, whose near-term goal is to earn her bachelor\u2019s degree in welding engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit. Long-term, she might like to follow in Pazkowski\u2019s footsteps and teach at WCC.<\/p>\n

Either way, she\u2019s happy to be \u201cinspirational for many women in the trades who have possibly struggled.\u201d<\/p>\n

#community #college #student #Americas #entrant #Olympics #skilled #trades<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up, Mikala Sposito dreamed of being a trailblazer. \u201cI always wanted to be the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[761,646,10582,12258,1064,4432,1965,1384,1177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}