Teacher becomes the student: Teaching machining
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on April 3, 2017 8:18 AM
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Bailee Daniels, a computer integrated machining instructor at Wayne Community College, demonstrates how to use the the service grinder in the machine shop for her Manual Applications II class.
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Computer integrated machining instructor Bailee Daniels, a computer integrated machining instructor at Wayne Community College, looks on as Daniel Brooks, a student in her Manual Applications II class, prepares the machine lathe for operation.
Bailee Daniels did not set out to pursue a degree in the male-dominant field of machining.
Nor did she envision being hired into the Wayne Community College program at 19 and becoming a full-time instructor a year later.
But now, at 21, she isn't afraid to get her hands dirty and channels her enthusiasm and passion into the classroom and recruiting others into the program.
"I feel like I do a lot of decisions on a whim, like taking the program was on a whim," she said. "That was a very lucky decision. And then doing part-time was a very lucky decision as well."
Her first exposure to the machining program happened during a career fair in high school that focused on STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math.
"I looked at the projects (in machining), you can make stuff with your hands," she said. "But really to be honest, I had forgotten all about it. I had the pamphlets in my room."
Her grandmother, with whom she lived at the time, encouraged Bailee to attend the open house at Wayne Community College.
"It was on a church night, but we missed church and she made me go," Daniels said. "They made me feel at home. I was like, maybe this is something I want to do."
The hands on elements appealed to her. There was an attraction to taking her aptitude to the next level, she said.
She still recalls all the "big machines" that were running in the shop and the feeling that came over her.
"I was like, man, these guys seem really smart. I want to be like that, too," she said.
After graduating from Charles B. Aycock High School in 2013, she enrolled in the WCC computer integrated machining program.
It was challenging at first, she admits.
"It was new to me, like I didn't even know how to drill anything or basically hadn't picked up a drill," she said. "It was very hard for me to get the manual classes.
"But my second semester whenever the programming classes started, I felt like I was top of the notch in the class. I'm not boasting or anything, because I was horrible at manual, like I was getting discouraged. But through my second semester I really came up and started being an A student as I would like to be."
Paul Compton, department chair, took note, remembering her being a "go-getter."
"As a student in class, she was always completing her assignments and in many cases, that she wrote a program before anybody else and had the thing ran before I even finished the lecture in the class that day," he said.
While he says he has hired women instructors before, the student pool is still predominantly male.
"When I started, I was the only female in my class," Miss Daniels said. "Throughout the two years there were four, but when I started teaching in the fall part-time there were six females."
The program is growing and she enjoys going out to recruit, a role that began while she was a student.
"I tell them in my recruiting speeches, 'Guys, I know you're thinking in your head, you don't know what this is,'" she said. "I didn't even know what it was. This is why open house is so important.
"Even if you're not sure that you're interested or you don't want to do it, you should come anyway and see what this side of manufacturing is -- you can make anything, anything you like."
It wasn't always easy to be outnumbered, she admits, noting that in addition to being smaller or younger, or at times less strong than her classmates, there was a definite shift.
"At the end, I felt like they were my brothers. We were like a family," she said. "They helped me out. I helped them."
She graduated from the program in 2015 with several certifications, a one-year diploma in computer-integrated machining and a two-year associate's degree in applied sciences.
Her intent was to pursue a bachelor's degree at East Carolina University and ultimately have her own machine shop. The more personal goal was to make braces for special needs kids and injured military.
That was interrupted, albeit only slightly, she says now, when Compton called her in the fall of 2015 to teach part-time.
Those initial days teaching a blueprinting class proved a bit daunting, she said.
"It was nothing but vocabulary," she said. "I was trying to make it fun.
"My books up there are filled with notes, sticky notes, it's ridiculous. When students ask me to borrow a book I'm embarrassed to show them because I had so many notes."
She is currently teaching three classes this semester, nine throughout the year -- from blueprint reading and manual machining to drafting and introduction to CNC, or computer numerical control.
The best part of her new role, she says, has been the students, "by far."
Seeing them make the connection to lessons she has taught is very rewarding, she said.
That is not to say she has let go of her own earlier goals. She is pursuing classes during the summer at ECU and envisions one day having a "walker shop" where patrons can enlist her services.
"I've recently purchased a house, and it has a shop in the back," she said. "It's like a four-bay shop and there is basically a drill press in there right now. That's still a dream, to have my own machine shop.
"But I couldn't see leaving teaching right now. Like it's just that great."
The next open house for students and parents will be April 26 from 6-8 p.m. It will feature demonstrations and information on financial aid and scholarships, as well as pizza and giveaways. RSVP is needed by April 25 at 919-739-6812 or e-mail Pcompton@waynecc.edu or Badaniels@waynecc.edu.