wlkelley3 said:
nderwater said:
Attending part time, a 4 year bachelors degree becomes an 8 year headache. As the head of a single-income household with two small kids you're way past the point where trying to get a BS/BA makes sense. Going forward, any classes you take should be ones that directly teach you marketable skills.
I only agree with part of this. There are contributing factors to take into consideration. It certainly is doable. I did it. I used my GI Bill to get my BA while working full time, owning/taking care of a house and 2 teenage daughters at the time after I retired from the military at age 38. Was 45 when I finished my degree and it helped tip the scales to a couple promotions. It was a desk job then onto class after work for several years.
Which is OP best route is what his goals are and which he could afford. In my case, college was paid for. Probably not in his case. So years of that expense can take its toll. I know I just got tired of the long days and lost weekends writing papers to use up the rest of my GI Bill towards a Masters. Wouldn't really help me much in my career anyway. Again in my case I just couldn't see myself crawling up & down aircraft when I got close to 60 so wanted something behind a desk. Started behind a desk before I really wanted to but now that I am 60 I don't regret it.
Have to weigh all the factors, financial, family, current desire and future desire to make a decision that is best for you. Nothing wrong with the trades and there is certainly a need for tradesmen. And the trades can certainly pay well too. My dad used to tell me that there is always a market for someone that is good at something, be that good whatever you decide to be and you'll always be sought after. An exaggeration but you get the intent. I did both, I have an A&P license and a BA degree. Got the A&P in my 20's and BA in my 40's. If you like to weld and want to get into welding then do it right, get the proper training and getting certifications help. If you decide college, just know that it will be a lot of work and sacrifice. You won't have much of a social life.
Well said,
Working in the trades can produce a very nice income, especially if you are skilled and willing to chase top paying work.
On the other hand, the physical demands on your body does wear you out, literally! Knees, hips, back and shoulders often need repairs or replacement before retirement or may be a cause for early retirement.
That can be a expensive demand on finances if health insurance policies aren’t top notch. Or you are a member in a good union with great health care benefits. At a time just before retirement.
STM317
UltraDork
4/9/19 4:58 a.m.
I've got two family members that work(ed) as welders for a large pharma company. One travels the globe doing pipe and pressure vessel inspections at their various facilities while the other does facility maintenance/fabrication and is home every night. They both do very well for themselves, and one has set up a side business doing it to keep themselves busy through retirement. Most people don't think of places like Pharma companies as a landing spot for welders, but it goes to show that a skill like that can be used about anywhere by anybody.
The other option, if you're thinking along the lines of a BS is adding a "T" to the degree. ME is highly focused on theory in the classroom and may lead to more data analysis or computer design types of work. MET gets more hands on instruction, and is more likely to have a job after graduation with a hands on component. (Disclaimer: I'm an MET grad and work on testing engines on dynos every day.) Same is true for EE vs EET, etc. I say this because if you choose to pursue a BS, you need to go for the education path that you're most likely to be successful in, and that will be most likely to lead to the career you want. You'd be graduating around age 40, and possibly with some debt. Be smart and efficient about the classes you take and the schools you attend to avoid any wasteful spending/debt.
Mndsm
MegaDork
4/9/19 5:10 a.m.
Dr. Hess said:
Welding good. School bad. Except maybe Welding School. I have recommended to my 2 step grand children to pursue something in the trades such as welding, plumber, electrician, etc. Something that is difficult to outsource. I will just point out that one of the leading Democrat presidential contenders for 2020, when he was Vice President, went to Russia and told them that "they" were going to do for Russian engineers what "they" did for Indian IT workers, that is, outsource all the US jobs to those countries. Now, Russians are bad again, so that didn't happen, but that is dangling out there. Welding, they are going to have a hard time outsourcing to China. The English did manage to out source plumbing to Poland, but we don't have that political structure and lack of borders, so that will be much more difficult here.
The 2 step grandchildren, well, let's just say that the older didn't listen at all. The younger is still in high school. I doubt he will listen either.
Try to specialize in the welding stuff. Stainless. Maybe other exotic metals. Pipelines. That kind of thing.
Friend of mine is ti/aircraft cert. Pretty sure he can go wherever he wants and stick any metal to any metal he feels like. Hes not even 30 and people are constantly hounding him to weld for them. It's worth it.
Mat/sci engineer here, I specialized in nanotechnology and only have a B.S.
When I graduated I pretty much found out that I needed at least a masters if not a PhD to do anything in that area. Landed on my feet contracting in a government office and have since gone government employee on work completely unrelated to nano. I ride a desk and do some travel (a few times a year) to supervise something or have technical meetings or policy meetings, but don't get my hands dirty. If I want that satisfaction in my life I have to get it from my hobbies. Normal day, desk and 2-3 meetings.
Desk time and long commute led to back injury for me. I have to go to a gym to stay in shape. Don't think a desk job means good health. It's just a different set of problems that need to be managed. Equally, if you have a physical aspect to a job you need to take care of yourself or like frenchy said, you will tear yourself up. Bodies do wear out eventually, especially if you don't take care of them.
I was thinking about getting a welding cert to do some small work as a soft retirement. Depending on where you live, you may have a solid path if you push that.
I have a friend who is making a go of having a welding truck/business.
Plumbing, if you hate the running the business side and enjoy the work OK, how is your wife's business sense? Natural partner if she can hack it.
Dr. Hess said:
When I had my shop slab poured, the youngest man on the crew was 40. The boss tried to avoid hiring younger men. He said you had to go pick them up at their house because their car was broken, or bail them out of jail, etc.
That was the first roofer I used. Big mistake in my case.
I think people are shotgunning ideas at the op without actually listening to what he wants ( I also think he didn’t provide great clarity).
So. Op. What’s really important to you? What’s your goal? If it’s Money or if it’s a more predictable home life.
Exactly SVreX said:
In reply to frenchyd :
Sorry Frenchy. That’s just not the case.
Companies want TALENT. That usually comes with experience, which usually comes with age.
The only young guys I am seeing these days are laborers. Construction companies hire LOTS of older guys.
And being in construction is NOT a death sentence or poor health sentence for older guys. I’m 57, and am in much better health than most guys 10 years younger than me. I rode a desk for a while. It nearly killed me. I’m thrilled to be back in the saddle.
Ah I remember 57 so well! The economy had been growing for about a decade. I was in demand, head hunters and companies tried to recruit me. My retirement funds were approaching 1/2 a million. I had a tiny mortgage on a house the bank assured me was worth 1.3 million. We were all in good health.
Just 5 years later my wife of 43 years had died of cancer, my career was over and I had been scrambling for work and finding lousy jobs. My retirement was all gone. Along with most.of my toys.
Each month I barely paid the mortgage, with the bank salivating about a repo. My credit rating had taken a massive blow.
Apexcarver said:
Mat/sci engineer here, I specialized in nanotechnology and only have a B.S.
When I graduated I pretty much found out that I needed at least a masters if not a PhD to do anything in that area. Landed on my feet contracting in a government office and have since gone government employee on work completely unrelated to nano. I ride a desk and do some travel (a few times a year) to supervise something or have technical meetings or policy meetings, but don't get my hands dirty. If I want that satisfaction in my life I have to get it from my hobbies. Normal day, desk and 2-3 meetings.
Desk time and long commute led to back injury for me. I have to go to a gym to stay in shape. Don't think a desk job means good health. It's just a different set of problems that need to be managed. Equally, if you have a physical aspect to a job you need to take care of yourself or like frenchy said, you will tear yourself up. Bodies do wear out eventually, especially if you don't take care of them.
That’s true. A desk job with the attending pressures can be hard on you as you age.
That’s why I felt he should do whatever he wanted but finish his degree. Not as a full time student but evenings, a few nights a week.
The degree is the key to the gateway. Upper management requires it.
You want to be in a position to determine who stays and who goes when the inevitable downturn occurs.
Ian F
MegaDork
4/9/19 7:08 a.m.
Given the choices, I would say welding.
The architectural engineering company I work for owns a number of engineering companies in India. For a few years, there was a big push to use them for projects. In the end, it cost us MORE money to use them than if we did the work stateside. My friends who work for other engineering companies who have also tried outsourcing overseas have had similar experiences. Maybe at some point they will figure out how to make outsourcing work, but right now it does not look practical.
The engineering world also has an age problem. At 48 I'm about average to high on the age range in my department (electrical). Getting young engineers to get into what we do has been challenging, although we have gotten a couple of recent co-ops to switch majors to electical and get into our field, which is good - probably because they see the potential job security.
Being an engineer does not automatically mean you'll be tied to a desk. A friend is an ME but works as a construction manager in NYC. I have done field work as well - working on site during construction where I was constantly putting out fires and doing design-on-demand. Mainly because when we created the drawings we had minimal information about the equipment getting installed, so when it would arrive on site we would have to scramble to fix the design to match what was actually required. I am actually supposed to be back at that client this week for a month or so, but for stupid reasons I am not.
Lot of good thoughts.
My Mech Eng job paid very handsomely for straight out of college, with lots of potential for growth. I just needed more field time at that point in my life. I didn't (still don't) have the right mindset to deal with extended desk work. My mind and my body suffered as a result.
As has been said, all engineering jobs are not created equal. There are engineer desk jobs and engineering field jobs and a spectrum in between.
A word of caution about adding the "T" to the engineering degree. Little brother has an MET degree from out of state and has had a hell of a time being recognized in Kansas as a "real engineer". He doesn't qualify for the best jobs because they don't want to settle for a Techie and he can't take the PE without going back to school.
As a side thought, Project Manager is a very marketable skill. Not sure if that's something you can take classes on or not.
Take free advice for what you paid for it. Either find a job you love doing or find a job that pays well enough that you can do what you love, or ideally, both.
that smart motherberkeleyer JohnInKansas wrote: Either find a job you love doing or find a job that pays well enough that you can do what you love
there is iron in these words. i haven't loved my job in about 20 years, but i like it enough to keep doing it and i love what my job has provided for me and my family.
Apexcarver said:
I was thinking about getting a welding cert to do some small work as a soft retirement.
A coworker and I discussed this - he knows guys that do trades on the side in retirement and grab some quick cash.
Being in sales and management we joked - what can we do? Make a sweet excel sheet or power point for ya?
mtn
MegaDork
4/9/19 8:24 a.m.
Datsun310Guy said:
Apexcarver said:
I was thinking about getting a welding cert to do some small work as a soft retirement.
A coworker and I discussed this - he knows guys that do trades on the side in retirement and grab some quick cash.
Being on sales and management we joked - what can we do? Make a sweet excel sheet or power point for ya?
I've been wondering about being an Excel Consultant. I never thought of myself as an expert in Excel, but apparently 99% of people using it don't realize that there is this thing called "GOOGLE" that has allllll the answers. Seriously, every team I've been on I've become the Excel expert if only because I know how to google the problem.
Datsun310Guy said:
Apexcarver said:
I was thinking about getting a welding cert to do some small work as a soft retirement.
A coworker and I discussed this - he knows guys that do trades on the side in retirement and grab some quick cash.
Being in sales and management we joked - what can we do? Make a sweet excel sheet or power point for ya?
Consultant.. College professor.. Come on.. Give yourself some credit.
Why are so many people adverse to desk jobs? I don't understand that.
Yes, it can be mentally draining, but so can doing the same work over and over again physically- I'm not aware of any job that is totally free of some kind of draining aspect. Heck, even performers have to do the same show over, and over, and over, and over again for months if not years.
There are actual desk jobs out there that also get you out in a lab or the field to develop them. Tons of them. Generally, they are called product development. I'm an ME, and have been able to get my hands dirty all I want. But I also have a lot more input in the product, and the direction the product goes into the future. Which is to say, I can have a lot more impact on the bottom line of our product and how profitable it is than just a tech doing what I ask them to do.
Doing welding can be very, very rewarding. But so can doing the design and development of the product that requires someone to weld it up.
And while I also appreciate there are people out there that love working under a lot of stress, there are a lot of people who do not, as well.
As I quickly approach retirement, I'm not quite sure what I will do- but one option is to be a consultant. And I know that my work does have value- having worked for free on this board, I find out that my skills are in high demand. Which is nice to know.
But all of that is doing a "desk job" as opposed to always getting my hands dirty.
Oh, and I'm much like a lot of other people- I work to live, not live to work. Work is interesting, but far from so captivating that I always want to be here.
I'll be a shill for becoming a machinist again :)
A good certificate program will get you a job in the industry in ~12-18 months. A good attitude and willingness to learn what's making the machines move and program them should have you in the 60k range within about 5 years and if you're feeling froggy at that point, either a jump into the applications engineering world with an OEM machine tool provider or consultant group or becoming a full time cnc programmer (not writing computer code, using a CAD-like system to make toolpaths and such to make the machines/robots dance) will keep you on the move solving interesting problems. Six figures is possible by the 6-8 year mark if you're a hustler and willing to jump into multiaxis work.
We're getting hit with the silver tsunami like a lot of trades.
mtn said:
I've been wondering about being an Excel Consultant. I never thought of myself as an expert in Excel, but apparently 99% of people using it don't realize that there is this thing called "GOOGLE" that has allllll the answers. Seriously, every team I've been on I've become the Excel expert if only because I know how to google the problem.
I have thought about this as well. Its honestly amazing to watch the average user do things in Excel. Not because they simply do something inefficiently, but because they don't bother to see if there is a better way at all.
Back on topic ish:
alfadriver said:
Why are so many people adverse to desk jobs? I don't understand that.
I don't get this either. Do they think you are glued to your seat and you stare at some boring document all day?
My desk/computer is my home base but I still get out of my char to go work on a prototype, meet with other groups, witness testing, etc. I get my hands dirty from time to time, but that isn't my core function.
Don't get me wrong, some desk jobs are hell, but a lot of them are good jobs.
SVreX
MegaDork
4/9/19 9:40 a.m.
alfadriver said:
Why are so many people adverse to desk jobs? I don't understand that.
For me, it’s because the kind of stress encountered is not easily off-loaded.
I am wired for producing stuff. At the end of the day, if stuff goes vertical and I can see what my hands have produced come to fruition, I get a great sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. I go home feeling good about myself and sleep well. Schedules, timelines, budgets are all quite concrete, linear, and predictable.
Its not the same for me when I am working a desk job.
Sure, I can produce a spreadsheet or a CAD drawing. But it doesn’t give me the same sense of accomplishment. It’s too easy to have a beautiful convincing looking spreadsheet that has wrong formulas, or a drawing that looks lovely but was actually drawn by MC Escher, and can’t be built.
The kinds of stress I encounter in the field are all fixable. Something didn’t fit, someone underfigured, or the overpaid engineer overlooked the fact that his structure was occupying the same plane as something else. All of this is stuff I can fix.
The kinds of stress I encounter at a desk make my head want to explode. Unpredictable timelines, impossible bosses micromanaging me, unfixable problems.
There is nothing wrong with a desk job. But not everyone fits.
SVreX
MegaDork
4/9/19 9:49 a.m.
One more thing...
Sadly in my field, I am seeing a huge deterioration in the quality and security of the related desk jobs. Engineering and architecture jobs are dwindling fast, and the quality of the work we now get in the field is pathetic. We got far better drawings 20 years ago. There are a lot of reasons for that.
I am NOT seeing an deterioration in the need for quality tradesmen. In fact, I see a relation between the 2. As the professional roles deteriorate, the trades are expected to come up with field solutions that never used to be part of their job. The future for skilled tradesmen is gigantic.
I wish that wasn’t true, but it is.
The need for those professional design skills is different in other industries.
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :
Man if I knew exactly what I wanted out of life/work this would be a way easier question. That is part of my problem, slight hesitation to really commit. Also I can be quite fickle, which keeps the car hobby interesting but is generally problematic otherwise.
Anyway, if I had to sum up my desires/values for a real career I’d say that I’d rather go crazy as a result of repetitive labor than repetitive desk work. Maybe it is a phase but I have a sort of reverence for earning a living “by the sweat of his brow”.
I threw ME out as an option because of my aptitude for math and fondness for machinery. I threw welding out because I enjoy the little bit that I do and I know good welders are in demand.
i want more than money the ability to take pride in a job well done. I don’t see myself being able to do that on a computer (and maybe I find some actual CAD fulfilling, never tried).
I also very much enjoy school (my 18 year old self would disagree) and would love to study just for the sake of learning, but as my situation requires I earn and support I think education for education’s sake will have to wait at least a few years.
alfadriver said:
Why are so many people adverse to desk jobs? I don't understand that.
SvRex put it very well. For me, to put it simply, I get bored. My brain would be off on tangents every hour or so. I'd end up fired for lack of production.
I like building things. I like solving the problems and generating a physical, usable product. It could be just about anything. That's pretty much what I do on the weekends too. Build things.
Ian F
MegaDork
4/9/19 10:24 a.m.
AngryCorvair said:
that smart motherberkeleyer JohnInKansas wrote: Either find a job you love doing or find a job that pays well enough that you can do what you love
there is iron in these words. i haven't loved my job in about 20 years, but i like it enough to keep doing it and i love what my job has provided for me and my family.
Agreed. I don't love my job either, but after 18+ years I am fairly well paid, have seniority and my group is pretty loose as far as oversight is concerned. About the only thing I'd really wish for would be a better/easier work-from-home/remote policy and infrastructure. While I definitely need to be in the office at least 3 days a week, having the option to work from home when the situation allows would be nice. But I have flexible hours and rarely have to work weekends. And after 18 years, I get 4 weeks of vacation. Better health insurance would be nice, but otherwise I don't have much to complain about.
