ALBANY, GA – Albany Technical College will host a virtual ribbon-cutting Live on Facebook, Thursday, February 18, located in Artisan Hall (building D), at 10:00 AM. A small group of College leadership and faculty will be on hand to comment and celebrate the latest addition to Albany Technical College, a new Barbering Lab.
Barbering is a 56 credit hour program under the Cosmetology Program that rolled out Spring 2020 amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Classes are taught at night at the college. This semester, there has been a 145% growth in barbering enrollment, with 32 students currently enrolled. With this planned growth in the program, added appropriate teaching space was needed to instruct the students. Nail Technician and Esthetician was approved by the Technical College System of Georgia State Board in August 2018. and will also be moved to the newly constructed Barbering area of the lab in Cosmetology.
Arniecesha Price, Chair/Instructor, Cosmetology, stated, “Barbering is booming in this area. It’s a booming industry. Albany Technical College wanted to fulfill this need to train future barbers. The barbering program is a diploma program that is a sequence of courses designed to educate and prepare upcoming barbers for the industry. Four semesters and a student is then prepared to take boards, which includes a theory and practical exam.”
The Barbering expansion construction project, including furnishings and equipment for the new lab, started in 2018 and was scheduled to be completed in February 2021. The total project cost was $583,000.
“Students in the Barbering Program at Albany Tech must have 1500 live-work hours before they take the state board exam. Seventy percent of Cosmetology students come right out of high school and attend during the day, with many older students using our evening classes. We are very proud to offer the community Barbering as a night class option,” stated Anthony Parker, President of Albany Technical College.
As grooming trends have changed, the demand for skilled barbers is on the increase. Modern barbers need a variety of skills to be successful. As a professional barber, you will need to use your creativity and customer service skills to deliver the perfect cut, shave or trim to ensure your clients feel their best — making them more likely to become return customers.
On any given day, barbers typically do the following: Inspect and analyze hair, skin, and scalp to recommend treatment; discuss hairstyle options; wash, color, lighten, and condition hair; cut, dry, and style hair; beard and mustache trimming; clean and disinfect all tools and work areas.
Albany Technical College is committed to the process of training and placing employees in decent jobs with decent salaries. Working relationships with employers is an essential part of the process. Albany Technical College is very proud to hold an average job placement of over 98% throughout all industry programs on campus. The median hourly wage for barbers was $14.50 in May 2019. The median hourly wage for hairdressers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists was $12.54 in May 2019. *
Facebook Live Event will be at https://www.facebook.com/AlbanyTech
* Source: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care-and-service/barbers-hairstylists-and-cosmetologists.htm#tab-5