Student and apprentice membership
Free while you are an apprentice or a full time student. Not a trial, not a discounted first year, not a card that arrives with an invoice behind it. There is no commercial reason to charge somebody on apprentice wages for access to technical information.
Who qualifies
- Apprentices under a registered training contract in a welding or engineering fabrication trade
- Trainees in a related qualification
- Full time students in welding, fabrication, materials or welding engineering
Evidence of enrolment or of your training contract is required at sign up, and again at each renewal, because the tier is free and has to stay honest.
What you get
- The full technical library. The Job Knowledge series, the archive, and the standards library, which is free to everybody anyway and which is genuinely the fastest way to work out how the Australian codes fit together.
- The WeldED bulletin.
- A certification discount waiting for you. The moment you finish your trade you are eligible to apply for AS 1796 certification, and as a member you apply at the member rate.
- The network. Which matters more than it sounds like it does when you are looking for your first job off the tools.
Why bother in first year
Two reasons, and the second one is worth more than it looks.
The library will make you better at your job. Understanding why preheat matters, what hydrogen does to a weld, and why a joint cracked three days after you welded it puts you ahead of people who only know the settings. Apprentices who read are the ones who get given the interesting work.
Start keeping a record now. Certification and renewal both run on documented experience: process, material, thickness, position, standard, and who can confirm it. Building that habit in first year means that when you apply for certification you have a record. Reconstructing four years from memory in your final year is miserable and much less convincing.
What to write down, every week
Date. Process. Parent material and grade. Thickness. Position. Joint type. The standard or procedure you worked to. Who supervised. That is the whole list, it takes two minutes, and it is the raw material of every certification you will ever hold.
What happens when you finish
Your membership converts to individual membership at the next renewal, and you will be told before that happens rather than after. Finishing your trade is also the point at which certification becomes available to you, and the sensible sequence is to have membership current when you apply so the member rate applies. Individual membership.
Student membership is free while you are enrolled or apprenticed. Ask AWI what evidence to send, and ask again if your enrolment changes, because the tier tracks your enrolment rather than a calendar. Individual membership fees are quoted on application, so you will have the figure well before you need to decide. Ask AWI.
If you teach or supervise apprentices
Sign your whole cohort up. It costs nothing, it gives them the library, and it means the certification conversation at the end of their trade starts from a member record rather than from scratch. If your organisation also wants named seats for staff, corporate membership covers that separately.