Phase 4: NYC (jewelry class)

The reason for making the trek to NYC in the first place was to attend the first of my lab classes required for my gemology degree. This class taught us how to grade colored stones, and it’s much more subjective than diamond grading, and at times this can be frustrating. Windowing, for example, is the amount of light that goes through a stone rather than reflect back, and extinction are the dark areas that show no light at all. For each stone then, you can estimate the % of light return by first estimating the % of windowing and extinction. But you try and find the best angle of the stone when doing this, and there’s a good chance that someone else would choose a different angle than you did when estimating these numbers.

Same thing with the various kinds of inclusions and blemishes that can cover a stone. One person might say a break looks more like a feather than it does a fingerprint, and someone else might call something a pit instead of a chip. Add to this the fact that the lab stones, while pretty, have definitely been around the block, such that a scratch not listed on the answer sheet might very well have shown up through years of being handled by students not familiar with how to use tweezers.

But recognizing these characteristics and getting our own papers to match the answer sheets did get easier as the days went on, and even though I was the least experienced and the least far along in the program, I got one of the highest scores on my test. It was also nice to meet several people in the industry and make contacts I’m sure I’ll keep in the future. One thing worth mentioning, especially if like my loving sister you are tempted to ask me if this is the University of Phoenix way to become a jeweler, this program is hard. So hard in fact that I am a little depressed after meeting people who are almost done to learn how long it’s taken them. And also how demanding the courses become later on. The amount of information I must learn, memorize, and know is starting to become overwhelming. But I suppose this is the price of a dream.

I had wanted to get a picture of me at my microscope examining a stone, or at least a picture of the GIA diamond grading lab I got to tour, but they don’t allow pictures to be taken inside. The above picture was the best I could do. But just close your eyes and picture me examining rubies and aquamarines all day. I hope in your mind I’m smiling, because I most definitely was.

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