The Carpentry major is designed to prepare students for careers as carpenters in residential and commercial construction, factories, cabinet shops, and building maintenance fields. Instruction includes courses in theory and shop practice in the proper uses of hand and power tools and machines, building footings and foundations, site layout, rough framing, exterior and interior finishing, blueprint reading, and cost estimating. The primary activity of the program is the building of a house. This house building experience includes laying out the house on the lot, building the footing forms, rough framing, shingling the roof, insulating, hanging the drywall, and trimming out the house. Job opportunities exist with independent homebuilders, commercial contractors, lumberyards, furniture manufacturers, and cabinet making shops.
Graduates typically start as entry-level carpenters.
With further education and work experience, they can become journeyman carpenters, foremen, or may start their own business.