apprenticeships for locksmiths are very rare in the US.

Australia, encourages apprentice training through government sponsored programs, whereby the government apprenticeship commission will enable a locksmith company to be subsidized for training an apprentice, indentured to a 3 year minimum term.

When I did my apprenticeship (many years ago), my boss received 50% of my wages from the government program. An excellent way to subsidize employment opportunities for young people, especially when you consider that apprentice wages are deliberately low.

If the state government here had an apprenticeship program (of similar) I would gladly take on apprentice locksmiths, train them up, hold them to their indenture period with me and it would provide a viable program for getting people employed and off unemployment benefits.

(i'm in the mid-west)

Any of these courses will only teach you the bare bone basics to being a locksmith. You are hearing this from a guy who took a couple courses and realized it would have been better if I could have saved my money on these courses and got hired on with an established locksmith business.

If getting a job with one is not an option, I suggest you take one of these courses and shake hands with as many locksmiths as possible, because you will need their help. There are so many locks out there that you will not see in a 2 week course. The customer will be standing there while you try to figure out how to take the lock apart. Once you figure it out, "oops, there goes an E-clip", or a spring you won't yet have in stock because you didn't think of it.

For some reason I did not get the standard kwikset the law of averages should have played out. I got some weird locks that I will never forget. I got this kwikset knockoff where the diameter of the pins were smaller than my Lab pins. basically you cannot rekey the thing unless you jumbled the existing pins around, which is what I did. I had this other Kwikset knobset knockoff where you had to pick or turn the key to the 6 o'clock position in order to take it apart. Weiser 10 or 2 o'clock to pull cap off. Schlage 3 or 9 o'clock to take apart.

My first sub contract job for a big lock shop got me a Marks Profile lock. Upside down lock with no key. Needs to be picked to a certain position to remove the lock. I was the 3rd locksmith sent out there. The 2 others could not figure it out, and in all honesty, I would not have either if I had not shook hands with locksmiths at the lock supply.

OP was sig spamming his site and has not removed it several days after I asked him to, so the post was deleted. If OP was a human and not a spambot, s/he will get back to me and we can resolve this. Don't let that stop further constructive discussion on the topic, though. I'll just butt back out.

-steve