Senior Keion Jones has spent three hours a day every school day over the past two years in the Cosmetology room of the CAS, alongside other aspiring cosmetologists who sought to get a competitive head start on their careers.

Jones first found her love for hair by doing her sister’s and her own, and when she heard about the cosmetology program offered at Wando, she opted to pursue the interest.

Over the past two years, she has had to complete 300 hours of training.

“You have to come to class and you learn about three different subjects before you can actually start on the public,” Jones said. “The main skills that you learn are haircutting, coloring, and then the safety issues.”

Completing these mandatory areas of training, she thinks, is well worth it: after training comes hands-on experience with real clients.

“Once you get the jist of doing everything and you get through all the book work, your day is basically just clients,” Jones said. “That we get to work with actual clients [is my favorite part].”

Now that Jones’s cosmetology career at Wando is wrapping up, she must think ahead to the required exam that will earn her the necessary certificate to work in the field.

“We’re supposed to go to state board,” Jones said. “It has two parts: you have the written and then the practical. The practical is in Columbia, the written you just take right here in North Charleston.”

The end result is the same as if Jones had attended a school that specializes in cosmetology, at a fraction of the cost. Not to mention, everything purchased for the classes, students are allowed to take with them. She is most thankful for this.

“It’s a lot cheaper. We only have to spend about $600 on this and if we did it in a different school, we would spend about $20,000,” Jones said. “After you leave here, you get to take your whole kit with you, which is a lot of stuff: straighteners, hair dryers, stuff like that. You don’t have to buy a new kit. You have all of that with you.”

After completion of the courses and exam, Jones intends to branch out past cosmetology, but hopes to work in an area she’s long been interested in as a side career.

“I don’t think that I would ever open my own hair salon… because I want to be a nurse, a surgical nurse. It’s [Cosmetology’s] something I would do as I accomplish my other goal,” Jones said.