This may be a long and complicated post but here goes.....
I want to be an arborist. I have my cs 30, 31 and woodchipper licence's and booked in for the cs 38 / 39 course in April (which I'll hopefully pass!) I'm also going to do a stumpgrinder course.
My main question is though, what sort of college course should I be looking at doing, if any!? I don't want to become a scientist on trees but want to know about about them, and arboriculture in general, then just how to chop them down! I want to look at a tree, dead or alive, and be able to tell what the best course of action would be to take on it. I want to learn the pros and cons of pollarding, crown lifting, branch removal etc.
I have seen a home learning course which at the end gets you a RFS-Cert level 2 in arbs, does anybody know if this is any good? According to the website- "The RFS Certificate is widely recognised throughout the arboricultural industry as proof that the holder has both a good theoretical knowledge of arboriculture and is proficient in the practical skills needed to succeed"
Or would a City & Guilds qualification hold more weight in the arb world? Or is the basic Tree inspection course offered by TKF good enough?
Would I just be better off getting more tickets, such as CS 40,41,45,47...........
I know experience counts for A LOT and people with more experience would be preferred over someone who just has lots of tickets but I want to learn and progress too!
I'd love to start as an apprentice and work my way up but with a house and kids taking a big hit in wages is a definite no no!
I am working with the arb's team for a day at my current place of work but can't see me getting many days with them during the year
Also tried local arb's teams but none have any weekend work on and just require subby's during the week.
Thanks for taking the time to read, any advice given is greatly appreciated. (Apart from the gumpry or sarcastic ones )