Laura's battle for the title of Swiss Carpentry Champion
Two more minutes!" shouts one of the officials to the competitors. It is impossible to tell whether Laura Leimgruber heard him under her hearing protection. But it doesn't matter. She knows exactly how much time she has left to complete her competition task.
She sands all the edges once again and checks whether the tilt window fits into the frame. She has long since realised that she won't be able to finish. She no longer has time to anchor the window so that it swings around its horizontal axis as specified.
Laura Leimgruber, 19, from Fahrwangen AG, is studying to become a carpenter with a vocational baccalaureate. She is competing for the title of Swiss champion at SwissSkills. «As a district school pupil, the logical next step would have been grammar school. However, I wanted to learn something manual in conjunction with the technical vocational baccalaureate. The first taster apprenticeship as a carpenter didn't exactly meet my expectations, but I wasn't discouraged and kept looking. At my current training company, Ruepp AG, everything was just right. I like working with wood. It feels pleasant and I really like the versatility of the material. I also like working precisely - to the tenth of a millimetre - and producing a workpiece to exact dimensions. I will now spend some time working on the job, gaining experience and thinking about what to do next. I can well imagine going in the direction of furniture design or planning.»
The 18-year-old from Aargau was still a track and field athlete at the beginning of her apprenticeship as a cabinet maker. She ran 800 metres and 1500 metres. «It happens that you fall or start the first hundred metres of an 800-metre race far too quickly. Then you have to bite through it and make the best of it,» she describes.
The same applies at SwissSkills, the Swiss vocational championships, where Laura is competing for the titles in the cabinetmaking and solid wood carpentry disciplines. The only woman among nine participants. Out of over 1,100 apprentices, they prevailed in several qualification rounds and have since formed the Swiss national team of carpenters.
Although they are all competitors, they supported each other with tips.
A whistle marks the end of four days of competition. The eight young men and the young woman carry their tilting windows to the jury. Laura has a considerable fan club, friends and family who occupy the spectator seats at her workbench. When she returns to them, she smiles and wipes tears from her eyes. «All the pressure fell away at that moment,» she explains later.
She does not hide the fact that she is not entirely satisfied with her performance. «At the beginning, I had trouble understanding the plan, I didn't realise how I was supposed to make certain connections.» After talking to her colleagues during the lunch break, she found the solution. Although they are all competitors, they supported each other with tips.
Where professional virtuosos compete for medals
The level of difficulty rises again at the national championships. Whether it's a craft, a social service or programming, all the young professionals have to solve tricky tasks in a short space of time. Whoever delivers the best result - a jury monitors the participants' performance during the four-day competition - can call themselves Swiss champion at the end.
The current ranking list of winners can be found here.
A level of craftsmanship that few can match
Solid wood carpentry, to which the second half of the four-day competition was dedicated, is not her favourite discipline. "I'm a cabinet maker, so I want to do particularly well in furniture. Laura didn't get everything just right there either.
«In the preparation competitions, we always had to work extremely quickly and therefore cut back on the finish, i.e. how nicely we worked everything out. Here we gradually realised that we had enough time and therefore had to work more cleanly to get a good score. If I had known that, I would have invested more time in the individual elements of the furniture on the very first day.» After seeing her colleagues' finished boxes, she knew: «It's going to be a close-run thing, a small mistake can make all the difference.»
What these young people are doing here is top-class sport.
Sandro Mächler, Project Manager Basic Training at the Association of Master Carpenters
Sandro Mächler, project manager for basic training at the Association of Master Carpenters, categorises: «Very few trained carpenters achieve the level of craftsmanship that the members of the national team have. What these young people are doing here is top-class sport.» He explains, for example, that they have mastered techniques for interlocking two wooden elements that are rarely used outside of competitions because they are so time-consuming and expensive.
«We have been preparing the participants for these four days for the last year and a half. And I assume that most of them haven't done much work in the last few weeks, just training.»
«The tension was huge»
Laura completed her apprenticeship in the summer - as the best in the canton of Aargau. She also completed her vocational baccalaureate with top marks. Since then, she has continued to work at her training company on a 40 per cent workload. She invested the rest of her time in preparing for the championships. Practising special techniques, working on speed and precision, understanding complicated plans and time management were the skills she honed.
However, the pressure of the competition can hardly be simulated, even if this was the purpose of the national team's preparatory competitions. «Despite the long days at SwissSkills, we all struggled to eat and sleep, the tension we were under was so great,» she says, describing the atmosphere.
Who is travelling to the World Championships?
On Saturday evening, hours after the end of the competition, the time has come: the winners of the furniture and solid wood disciplines are announced. The three best cabinetmakers are called to the front. Laura is not one of them. When she sees the ranking list, her disappointment rises again: with 63.19 points, she is less than one point short of third place and thus the bronze medal as a memento of her time as a member of the national team.
This is over for them with SwissSkills. Only the winners in the two disciplines travel to the WorldSkills, the world championships. Like the others, Laura also dreamed of it. «I still haven't fully realised that it's over. I'm also not yet happy with what I've achieved. At the moment, all I can say is: it was mega nice, my time in the team was great.»
Laura has taken unpaid holidays for the next six weeks, after which she will work full-time at her training company. She wants to find out what she wants to do next in her career, whether she wants to start further training or study. «For now, I'm looking forward to working normally and no longer having a head full of complicated plans.»
Find your own path in seven steps
- Schritt 1: Eigene Interessen und Stärken kennenlernen
Wie Alltagsgewohnheiten und Wunschträume Jugendlichen als Wegweiser zur Selbsteinschätzung dienen können. Dazu ein Fragebogen für Berufswählende. - Schritt 2: Berufe und Ausbildungen kennenlernen
Die wichtigsten Bildungsangebote im Überblick, Berufe der Zukunft, wo der Mangel an Lernenden und Fachkräften am grössten ist und welche Berufswege über eine Hochschule führen. - Schritt 3: Eigene Stärken mit den Anforderungen von Berufen und Ausbildungen vergleichen
Der Abgleich der eigenen Fähigkeiten mit den Anforderungen von Berufen, wie auch Menschen mit Behinderung den Einstieg in das gewünschte Arbeitsumfeld finden und welche Rolle Leistungstests spielen. - Schritt 4: Interessante Berufen in einer Schnupperlehre kennenlernen
Das Berufswahlpraktikum ist der Realitätscheck: Welche Formen von Schnupperlehren es gibt und was Jugendliche über das Schnuppern wissen müssen. - Schritt 5: Mögliche Berufe und Ausbildungen überprüfen und eine Entscheidung fällen
Inwiefern der Berufseinstieg ein wesentlicher Schritt in der Persönlichkeitsentwicklung ist, warum der Lehrbetrieb so gut passen muss wie der Beruf – und wie junge Berufsleute um Titel wetteifern. - Schritt 6: Eine Lehrstelle suchen oder sich bei einer Schule anmelden
Worauf es bei der Lehrstellensuche ankommt, wie man einen guten Eindruck im Vorstellungsgespräch macht und zehn Tipps für eine überzeugende Bewerbungsmappe. - Schritt 7: Sich auf die Lehre oder Schule vorbereiten oder Brückenangebote abklären
Wenn der weitere Weg nach der obligatorischen Schule feststeht, gilt es sich zu informieren und darauf vorzubereiten – ansonsten gibt es eine Reihe sinnvoller Brückenangebote.
