High School Construction Career Pathway

Carpenters construct, repair, and install residential and commercial building frameworks and structures made from wood and other materials. If you’re interested in pursuing a career in construction after graduating from high school, our online high school carpentry classes can help you begin to prepare for a job in the field while you earn you diploma. You’ll complete your online high school core classes, like English, science, and math. In your Homeschool Carpentry Curriculum you will learn the basics of carpentry in five career-focused electives., then learn the basics of carpentry in five career-focused electives. Your carpentry courses are transferrable to Penn Foster’s Construction Trades Career Diploma Program, which can give you a head start on training to become a carpenter.

Carpenters

AVG SALARY*

$49,520/yr

NUMBER OF JOBS

1,024,100

State Licensing

Licensing and/or certification requirements for jobs are not the same in every state and may include educational, testing, and/or experiential requirements beyond those offered in the Penn Foster Program. Prospective students should contact the state professional licensing board or similar regulatory body in the state(s) where they plan to work to determine their requirements before enrolling in this Program. Click here for contact information for state licensing/regulatory boards and certain industry licensing information.

Cost of Program

$949

$1,399 Save $450

$55/month, Start for as low as $1

Enroll Now Request Info

1-888-427-6200 (9AM - 9PM EST)

carpentry student using electric wood plane.

Carpentry Career Pathways Courses

General High School Courses

Orientation

In this course, you'll explore the amazing potential of your personality. The course begins by defining personality and showing its effects on your life. You'll learn some famous theories about personality and the possible ways that personality is formed. After taking a personality test, you’ll reflect on your results to understand more about yourself and your traits. Finally, you’ll decide how your personality can help you to build better relationships, excel as a leader, benefit your community, and succeed in your High School program and beyond.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Define personality and its effects on your life
- Explain three theories that contribute to the development of one’s personality
- Describe one’s own personality type and individual strengths and preferences
- Examine personality characteristics that can be influential to learning, leadership, and career success

Humanities

In this course, you’ll learn how to become a strong Digital Citizen. You’ll learn to use technology to find information in ways that are ethical and effective. You’ll be able to describe why it’s important for everyone to have access to technology. By the end of this course, you’ll recognize how to protect your digital privacy during online activities.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Recognize how to use digital technology ethically and effectively to obtain information
- Describe the importance of access to digital technology to communicate and perform tasks
- Describe how to protect digital data and how to safely use digital technology for commerce

English

In this course, you'll study techniques applicable to any type of reading, including reviewing, predicting, scanning, finding the main idea, and drawing conclusions. You'll discuss how to determine word meanings by examining context clues, and differentiating fact from opinion to identify bias. This course also covers poetry and fiction.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Interpret a text by previewing and scanning
- Create effective writing
- Interpret works of fiction and poetry
This course will help you improve your English skills so you can effectively communicate in your personal life, in the remainder of your studies, and in your career.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe the four steps in the writing process
- Define, describe, and provide examples of the different parts of speech
- Identify the principal parts of verbs and verb tenses for both regular and irregular verbs
- Discuss the difference between an adjective and an adverb
- Identify prepositional phrases and the objects of prepositions
- Explain the difference between coordinating, correlative, and subordinating conjunctions
- Explain the main components of complete sentences
- Identify and correct sentence fragments and run-on sentences
- Provide agreement between subjects and verbs
- Explain the proper use of the different parts of speech
This course will enhance your language skills by expanding your vocabulary, mastering word usage, and strengthening your writing.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain why language is important and describe how communication skills can affect your life
- Explain how the eight parts of speech are organized to communicate meaning in phrases, clauses, and sentences
- Apply your language skills in conversation, vocabulary, word choice, spelling, pronunciation, and writing
- Use modifiers, prepositional phrases, and conjunctions correctly
- Correctly use apostrophes, hyphens, and periods
- Recognize and use the various elements of sentence structure
- Correct common writing mistakes
- Write sentences that have effective beginnings, concise wording, parallel structure, and active voice
- Create a unified, coherent composition with an introduction, body, and conclusion
- Write effective, appropriate, business letters, friendly letters, courtesy letters, formal invitations, a letter of application for a job, and a resume with a cover letter
This course will refresh your understanding of the basic parts of speech and will focus on the importance of organizing your time effectively to create a document from the first draft stage to the final draft stage.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Recognize and use both formal and informal English for letter writing
- Begin to write an essay
- Organize your writing time effectively
- Plan a writing project from beginning to end
- Locate books using the card catalog and on-line catalog at the library
- Use your own experience, that of others, and library research to provide material for writing projects
- Organize your ideas effectively in an outline
- Write your ideas in detail, following a logical order and sticking to your subject
- Express your thoughts and feelings more easily, more accurately
This course will allow you to experience literature actively and become involved both intellectually and emotionally.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Read more effectively—for both knowledge and enjoyment
- Use new vocabulary to discuss, write about, and understand literature
- Explain the characteristics of the different genres, including the short story, novel, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and essay
- Discuss works by writers such as Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, London, Twain, and Thoreau
- Analyze novels, short stories, poems, dramas, and other types of writing
- Understand and explain the objectives and accomplishments of the various writers
- Seek, find, and enjoy many additional examples of fine writing
- Identify various literary figures
Textbooks:
- Great American Short Stories
- The Call of the Wild
- Great Short Poems
- Songs for the Open Road: Poems of Travel & Adventure
- Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
- Great Speeches by Native Americans
- Narrative of Sojourner Truth
- A Midsummer Night's Dream

Math

This course will provide a solid foundation so you are able to successfully use mathematics in your course, life, and career.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Solve real-world problems involving whole numbers
- Solve real-world problems involving fractions
- Solve real-world problems involving decimals
- Compare the English and metric systems of measurement
- Explain ratios, proportions, and percents
This course will allow you to apply your math knowledge to areas of your everyday life.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Estimate results quickly
- Accurately figure the amount of money involved when discounts are stated in percents
- Make smart consumer decisions
- Calculate yearly interest rates
- Understand the importance of a budget and how to prepare one
- List the factors to consider before buying a new or used car
- Discuss the options available regarding your personal insurance
- Determine when you’ve saved enough money to start investing
- Explain the difference between common stock and preferred stock
- Explain why it’s important for you to plan for your retirement
This course will review the four mathematical operations so you are able to use them at an advanced level.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Use the rules of the order of operations to solve multistep problems
- Solve word problems using equations
- Use the four basic operations with positive and negative numbers
- Give examples of monomials and polynomials
- Simplify polynomials by combining like monomials
- Simplify and solve one-step and multistep equations
- Identify and name various components of geometry
- Identify different types of quadrilaterals and triangles
- Calculate the area of squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles using appropriate formulas
- Apply the Pythagorean theorem to find the length of a missing side in a right triangle
- Compute the volume of cubes, cylinders, and rectangular solids using the correct formulas
- Solve equations using the principles of geometry

Science

The course covers topics in geology, oceanography, meteorology, environmental science, and astronomy.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain the basic principles and methods of Earth Science
- Discuss the various surface processes on Earth
- Identify features of Earth's atmosphere and oceans
- Explain the causes of geologic activity
- Describe the impact of human activity on natural resources
- Explain the formation and properties of the solar system and universe
In this course you’ll gain insight into the origin of life, the relationships among all living organisms, and discover how your own body works.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe the characteristics, chemistry, and ecology of living things
- Analyze cells and their processes for obtaining energy and reproducing
- Explain how traits are passed on from one generation to the next
- Explain how different species of living things have evolved and are classified
- Identify the characteristics and behavior of plants and animals
- Describe the anatomy and physiology of the human body
This course covers a variety of topics in modern science that affect everyday life, from energy and heat to sound and electricity.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain how objects move when forces are applied
- Describe the effects of heat energy on matter
- Analyze waves and radiation
- Apply the principles of chemistry
- Determine what scientific principles apply to electricity and electronics

Social Studies

This course focuses on US history from the earliest human settlers in North America thousands of years ago to the modern-day. You’ll learn the story of the native people who lived in this region long before Europeans came to create colonies. Follow the colonists as they faced the unknown and attempted to make new lives for themselves in North America. Finally, you’ll experience the birth and growth of the United States, a young nation that has managed to pack a wealth of world-changing events into its short history.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe settlement of the colonies in America
- Identify events from the American Revolution to the ratification of the United States Constitution
- Recognize expansion and industrialization in the United States during the early 18th century
- Describe the causes and lasting effects of the American Civil War
- Analyze how the events leading up to World War I shaped the United States
- Discuss the effects of the Great Depression and World War II on the United States
- Recognize changes in America from the 1960s through today
This course covers what the basic purposes of government are and how modern governments differ from one another.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe the different types of government and give examples of each
- Summarize the process used to ratify the Constitution
- Describe the three main parts of the Constitution and explain what each part includes
- Describe the process for amending the Constitution
- Describe the powers and responsibilities of the three branches of the federal government
- Outline the process by which laws are made
- Summarize some of the landmark cases handled by the Supreme Court
- Briefly describe the ways in which state and local governments operate
- Explain the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democratic nation
- Summarize the process for electing a president of the United States
This course will provide a broad survey of the history of the world, from the earliest humans who emerged from Africa to the modern peoples and nations that exist today. You’ll study how people adapted to live in different environments, developed tools and technology, created political institutions to govern, and spread ideas as they interacted with one another. By following the stories of different peoples and cultures through time, you’ll observe how key developments and events that took place over thousands of years have shaped the world today.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Recognize features and achievements of ancient civilizations, and Europe during the Renaissance and Age of Exploration
- Compare society and politics of world regions during the period of 1500-1800
- Explain causes of revolution, impacts of industrialization on society, and factors leading to development of global empires during the period of 1750-1914
- Describe how the Great War, Great Depression, and nationalism affected world regions
- Describe how World War II, the Cold War, and economic globalization affected world regions

Health & Physical Education

In this course you’ll learn the key components of nutrition, cardiorespiratory exercise, safety issues, and stress management techniques.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain the relationship between calories and energy
- Explain how carbohydrates, fats, and proteins fit into a healthy eating plan
- Select healthy ingredients and preparation methods
- Analyze food labels, recipes, and menus for total calories, fat, protein, carbohydrate, sodium, and fiber content
- List the advantages of cardiorespiratory fitness
- Recognize symptoms of common injuries and identify how to prevent them
- Explain the different types of stress and how they impact the body
- Recognize physical and psychological symptoms of stress
- Identify stress reduction techniques and common stressors of daily life
- Explain how fitness benefits your physical and mental well-being

Technology Requirements - As you know this is an online academic program. This means you will need access to high-speed internet to begin your program. In addition, you will need access to a Microsoft® Windows® based computer running Windows 10® or later or an Apple® Mac® computer running macOS® Sierra Version 11.2 or later, access to a word processing program to complete written assignments, and an email account to complete this program with Penn Foster.

Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation registered in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.

Apple, Mac, and macOS are trademarks of Apple, Inc. registered in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.

Related Career Pathways

Carpentry

Electrical

Plumbing

FAQs

What is a carpenter?

Carpenters construct, repair, and install building frameworks and structures made from wood and other materials. Carpenters often work as contractors or for construction companies on repairing and building residential and commercial properties.

How long does it take to learn carpentry?

Depending on your current carpentry knowledge, work experience, and education, it can take up to a year to learn the basics of carpentry. With Penn Foster’s carpentry pathway program, you’ll finish your high school courses and get a head start on learning how to become a carpenter.

How much does carpentry school cost?

Depending on the school or program you choose, the cost to attend a carpentry training program can vary. However, Penn Foster offers affordable tuition and payment plan options so you can earn your high school diploma, get a head start on training, and transfer to our online Construction Trades Career Diploma.

What are the duties and responsibilities of a carpenter?

Trained carpenters handle a variety of tasks depending on the job their working and their day-to-day duties can vary based on what needs to be done. Typically, carpenters will follow blueprints and building plans to meet the needs of clients on a project. They’ll frame and install structures and fixtures, build and install floors, walls, and doorways, and more.

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Sources:

*Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. "Carpenters." Occupational Outlook Handbook. Accessed June 16, 2021

Statements found in the United States Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook are not a guarantee of any post-graduation salary, in part because the data used to create the Occupational Outlook Handbook includes workers from differing educational backgrounds, levels of experience, and geographic areas of the country.