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Industry and Community Mastering his trade: Cooper Thornley's WorldSkills journey
Published: 22 Sep 2026
It’s been a whirlwind 12 months for CIT graduate Cooper Thornley as he prepares to represent Australia in welding at WorldSkills in Shanghai.
“It’s a massive honour to be able represent Australia,” Cooper said. “I always thought I’d love to be able to do something like this with welding, but I didn’t know about WorldSkills until two years ago. I didn’t think it was possible to be here.”
As he prepares to take part in the 18-hour welding competition spread across multiple days, Cooper is looking forward to the opportunity to compete amongst the world’s best.
“It’s going to be an amazing experience,” Cooper said. “I’m really looking forward to it – not only the competition...but there’s also a lot of pride when walking out of it knowing you’ve done good work and you’ve tried your best.”
Having completed a Certificate III in Engineering – Fabrication Trade, Cooper has found the support from his educators at CIT invaluable as he was able to master key foundational skills.
“It really set the fundamentals,” Cooper said. “You only get so much time to learn on the job...so being able to go to [CIT] and just practice, practice, practice...it’s a big help.
“CIT has helped a lot with the connections I’ve made. They’ve been able to show me other pathways that we can go within the trade and just a whole range of different opportunities.”
Although Cooper has spent 40 hours a week training for WorldSkills in addition to full-time work, he feels like he’s already reaping the rewards.
“It’s definitely improved what I do at work daily,” Cooper said. “Everyone that’s training properly and putting in the effort is going to walk away from this gaining at least 10 years' worth of knowledge.”
With the competition firmly in his sights, Cooper is determined to perform to the best of his ability in Shanghai.
“A medal would be nice,” Cooper said. “But just being able to walk away knowing that I give it my all and not walking away thinking ‘I wish I tried harder or trained more’. That’ll be a success to me if I can do that.”
The WorldSkills Competition will take place in Shanghai from 22-27 September with CIT students William Nickl and Cooper Thornley part of the 36-person Australian Skillaroos team.