{"id":5872,"date":"2021-05-25T12:35:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T17:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dunwoody.edu\/news\/?p=5872"},"modified":"2021-05-25T12:35:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T17:35:37","slug":"welding-technology-graduate-becs-wells-to-speak-at-dunwoodys-2021-commencement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dunwoody.edu\/news\/2021\/welding-technology-graduate-becs-wells-to-speak-at-dunwoodys-2021-commencement\/","title":{"rendered":"Welding Technology graduate Becs Wells to speak at Dunwoody’s 2021 Commencement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Growing up in central Washington State, Rebecca (Becs) Wells had two main interests: the visual arts, especially painting and drawing, and helping her dad work in his shop. Little did she know that those two interests would eventually combine, leading her to move to the Twin Cities, enroll at Dunwoody, and end up becoming the College’s student speaker for Commencement<\/a> as well as an Academic Excellence Award winner for the Robotics & Manufacturing department<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wells graduates with a Welding Technology<\/a> certificate this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in the small town of Leavenworth, WA, Wells maintained the interests she had developed as a child, but cross-country skiing became the dominant organizing factor of her life as she became a teenager, including competing in the qualifiers for Junior Nationals. She also participated in a program that allowed her to take community college courses during her junior and senior years, which meant she graduated with both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step would be to transfer to a four-year college\nand continue to pursue cross-country skiing, but Wells wasn’t convinced that\nwas the right path for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I decided I’d rather pursue an education rather than\ndivide my attention between the sport that I do love, but I realized I can\npursue recreationally,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wells wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do, but she knew where she wanted to be: Bozeman, Montana. She figured Montana State was a large enough college to accommodate whatever major she settled on. She also appreciated that Bozeman has a great outdoor community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, because of what she learned from her dad and a\nstint in contractor sales at a hardware store, she was quickly able to sign on\nwith a small construction company that did a lot of subcontracting work for the\nlarger firms in town. Once she proved she knew what she was doing, the men she\nwas working for explained she’d have better opportunities if she acquired an\nindependent contractor’s license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took some paperwork and a trip to Helena, but that’s\nexactly what she did, and it meant she was able to work on a variety of\nprojects, including her favorite one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We helped turn a cattle barn into a wedding venue,\u201d\nWells said. \u201cIt was gorgeous. I love it so much. I definitely like construction.\nIt\u2019s similar to why I like metal \u2014 you can watch it change in form into this\namazing thing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After working for a while, Wells realized that what she\nwanted most was to return to visual art so she enrolled at Montana State in the\nbachelor of fine arts program. Her intention was to focus on two-dimensional\nart, but then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“At Montana State … you have to take so many\ndifferent types of art classes, and so I took a sculpture class. It was the\nlast project. There were two requirements. The project had to be the size of\nyou, and you had to weld it. And I was hooked. I was going to be a\npainting-focused major, and I changed everything to sculpture at that\npoint.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduation, Wells wanted to keep learning about\nworking with metal, but the welding programs in her area all had wait lists.\nPlus she had heard from a cousin that there was this college in the Twin Cities\nthat really excelled at teaching welding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So she applied to Dunwoody, and less than a year ago in the\nmidst of a pandemic, she moved to the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Becs<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And while it wasn’t easy, it was worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’ve learned how strong of a human being I am through\nDunwoody,” Wells said. “Dunwoody has taught me that it’s okay to ask\nfor help and rely on other people. And if you ask for it, there most likely is\na community who is willing to back you.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her time at the College also reinforced that metal is her\nmedium of choice. Wells recounted how in one of the first classes Ross Skattum,\nSenior Welding Instructor, demonstrated all the ways that welders can work with\nmetal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “I love how much\nyou can change and manipulate metal, and you can make it look like these\nlifelike things, and it also can be a structural thing you use for cars and\nbuildings,” she said. “There’s just so much variety with what you can\ndo with metal.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wells enthusiasm for welding was definitely notice by the\nfaculty as were the other qualities that prove her love of learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Becs is intensely authentic and her leadership and\nproficiency in communication has proven invaluable to her classmates and\ninstructors in enriching and enhancing our educational experience,”\nSkattum said. “Her powerful attitude and steadfast determination are\nsecond to none.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s more, Wells will be leaving a physical legacy of her\ntime on campus during a difficult year for her and her fellow students. Drawing\non her art background, she designed a project that celebrates the strength of\nindividuals and community: a large metal tree to which each graduating welder\nwill add a metal leaf they design and fabricate. She and her classmates have\neach added their leaves to the tree during the past few weeks, and next year’s\nclass will do the same as they approach graduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n