If you could start your career over...

tr8todd said:

If I could do it all over again, I would not have gone to college for engineering, and instead just became a plumber right out of high school.  Didn't decide to become a plumber until I was around 32.  Wanted a job where I knew I could be home for all of the important moments as my kids grew up.  Now, I love my job.  Its very flexible and pays way more than it should.  The whole no benefits kind of sucks, but that can be taken care of privately.  No kids are going into the trades, and there is too much work for the number of guys in the trades now.  Can't imagine how bad its going to be in 10 years, as just about every guy on any of my jobs is 45 plus.  Most are retirement age or older.  My dad is 78 and still works 50-60 hour weeks because he loves it.  Getting dirty, goofing with the guys on the job, and being my own boss sure beats sitting behind a desk.  The best part may just be making customers happy.  You get to go in and save the day, all the while charging near ridiculous money.  When I first started out, people tended to think of tradesmen as less than equals.  We were the dumb kids in school that could only find a job swinging a hammer.  That has changed.  

My neighbor owns a plumbing business and can't believe the amount of work he has coming at him. People will call on holidays even for the simpiliest thing which blows my mind

I like my current career (civil engineering degree - geotechnical) and wouldn't change a lot other than wishing I could start fresh with the knowledge I have now. I would also work for the government or a client rather than the endless stress, anxiety, budget concerns, and impossible deadlines that come with working for an engineering consultant. 

I have been very lucky, my world in sales has been a challenge and rewarding.  I was a Navy junior,  we always lived off base and at the time my dad served we moved every two to three years.  Every thing my dad was doing was trying to end him, but he always came home.  He taught me through example to "try".

My Freshman year in HS we lived in New England, an area that it allowed me to cut grass and buy a paper route.  I was on to cash flow and learning about buying a in process business.  That paper route was an education in covering costs and my time, but I had the best bike my money could buy.

After college I received a BS in Management, can't make it up, and spent three years in a Southern California Aerospace firm working in the Purchasing Department learning about "$700 toilet seats".  How?  I have a family of people that are ME, EE and I learned I could see in three dimensions and read prints.   Learning MIL specs was not an issue. Three years tying to help fix bad "buying decisions" of the government, helped me to confirm a bad day in sales was better than a good day in purchasing. 

Do over: tuns out I enjoyed my under grad chem classes.  I still wounder about the oil industry?

Like many others here, Mechanical Engineering degree.  However, I’ve only had one job tangentially related to it, and that is what led me into software quality.  The problem is there is little to nothing else I could do that pays as well, so any change now would push back my retirement.  There are so many different ways I think I could have gone, that I’d have a hard time deciding which way to go.  

1. Skip the ME degree and go for CompSci.  I thought about this my junior year, but was desperate to graduate and get out into the real world.  The extra year to year and a half  would have been minimal, and I’d still have been graduating during the 90’s internet boom.
2. Accounting.  Was enough into strategy games as a kid that I think would have translated over well.
3. HVAC tech.  I wanted to go to the vocational school while I was in high school.  Parents shut that down.
4. Go to Vegas and count cards.  I used to be fast enough to do this.  It even paid for my college graduation trip. 

I've had a few careers. After a couple degrees I'd been accepted to law school for an environmental law program in the early 80's when the field was in it's infancy.  I got married to my first wife and relocated to where her job was, should have gone to law school.

I think I still don't know what i want to do as I sit here at work and post on the forum.

Placemotorsports said:

I think I still don't know what i want to do as I sit here at work and post on the forum.

Same here, I have to admit.

I went to a non-focused mech engineering program and fell into a HVAC building engineer job. I earned my PE and have been doing this for 15 years now.

Its not a 'cool' job but it pays well and I could almost do this job anywhere in the US or potentially the world, certainly now with remote working being easy. It keeps my brain busy and that's the best part for me.

We need more building type engineers so I am in a good place in terms of supply and demand.

I wouldn't change a thing.

Once I retire I'm getting a job at Weathertech which is close to my house. 
 

I can spend all day asking people; "what kind of car do you have? Oh yeah, those are great cars".  

if i had a career.....

(i'm kidding, i would be a bike mechanic who charged exorbitant prices but got the same amount of business as everyone else)

Id do absolutely whatever it took to fly fighter planes (shouldn't have listened to my dad), then retire into psychology. 

A buddy of mine is a commercial pilot.  He says there is a serious need for pilots, and it isn't all that difficult to get to that point.  Very few navy pilots coming out to fill the seats.  A couple of schools in Florida and maybe 80K in tuition and you can be in a co pilot seat.  He said he only became a pilot because of his high school teacher.  She use to yell at him for looking out the classroom window all the time.  Said you will never amount to anything fixated on whats going on out there instead of doing classwork.   He has gone back to speak at career day at the school several times, and tells all the students he gets paid over $200K a year for looking out the window. This year has been tough on him thou.  Last time I talked to him he had to be recertified because of not enough air time, and was working nights stocking shelves at a supermarket to pay the bills rather than dipping into savings.

My training and college degree is in theatrical design. I learned my craft well, and loved it. But no one taught me the business of my craft, so I never learned how to make a living at it. 
 

I miss it. 
 

I'd learn the business of theatrical and film design and construction.  Join the union. Focus on film and industrials. 
 

I would have also served in the military, and gotten a pilot's license.

Alternatively...

I really do love building stuff. But I didn't get the training and certifications I could have used to make me a success. 
 

So, a degree in engineering or architecture with a business minor, followed by the military and then my construction career. 
 

AND a pilot's license. 

I would have gone into business for myself early-on with some kind of IT-related thing. I knew nothing about it, but most people my age who followed that path are gazillionaires now.

In reply to tr8todd :

I work in avaiation.  What you ahve said is true.  It's a long road to get there to fly the big boys, but if you can get big transatlantic or pacific route.. you have a set schedule..  great benefits and good future prospects. I have many people who work with me in aerospace manufacturing who started down the pilot road and stopped.  

Seems like not too many years ago, there seemed to be a surplus of pilots, and commuter lines were able to get away with paying starvation wages.  Has demand really gone up enough?

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to tr8todd :

I work in avaiation.  What you ahve said is true.  It's a long road to get there to fly the big boys, but if you can get big transatlantic or pacific route.. you have a set schedule..  great benefits and good future prospects. I have many people who work with me in aerospace manufacturing who started down the pilot road and stopped. 

It was the seniority-based pay and the 5-digit+ training costs that put me off of a potential career as a pilot when I was a teenager. That and my memory is probably too bad, In IT you can always give yourself the opportunity for backsies - also a major reason I didn't get into medicine

Piloting isn't the land of milk and honey unless you cherry-pick senior international pilots - there are plenty of regional pilots flying on minimum wage. If I had pursued that type of career, I'd probably be making that kind of money flying Dash 8s between islands in the Caribbean. Making the same kind of money in IT seems preferable to that, with shorter and more regular hours.

I would of gotten out the military after my first 4 years and got into software and eventually steering my own company.

But my current path has lead me to meeting people that I wouldn't want to live without knowing. 

Well this thread took off better than my usual ones!  

Another direction I would have maybe taken was something in the investment market (I know several gentlemen racers in that field) or my own construction /home remodeling business (ditto). I never had the knack for programming though. I need to work with my hands and eyes more.  

I am still looking for a way to be self employed though. 

Just ran across this and remembered that probably the first job I expressed interest in was being a cartoon voice actor, I told this to my dad when I was a kid and he was like "NO that is not respectable work!" and I never seriously looked into it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/bugs-bunny-eric-bauza-1.5834174?cmp=rss

Little did he know that there would hardly be any respectable work for my generation when we grew up Probably like being an actor or a pop star, millions try but only a few succeed. These days it might be easier to make your own cartoon from scratch and make money on it online.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Absolutely. If you can write an entertaining story and learn how to tell it, there is money to made online.  Hell... just look at the Simon's Cat videos.  

Streetwiseguy said:

I'd get a government job and have a gold plated pension, and be retired already.

After cooking on a submarine for 4 years, I worked in restaurants for a bit, realized early the pro cooks are alcoholics or on their 5th marriage.

My uncle suggested I apply at the Watervliet Arsenal.  Hired as a machine operator, I went through their machinist apprenticeship and ended up in Prototype and R&E manufacturing.  Became a QC Inspector with boatloads of NDT training on their dime.  This experience got me a gig with Benet Weapons Lab.  At first I did metallographic analysis in a lab, then failure analysis, sometimes in the field.  At 61 with 42 years service (military time counts) they offered me $25,000 to go away.  My diverse background still keeps me desirable, albeit to a small audience.

For not having any college degrees I think I did well.  BTW, if they had a lay off on my first day of work, I would stay and a non-vet with even 50 years service gets the gate.  Would I start over?  I would tweak a few things, but no.  What career would I want if not the one I had?

   Man I have no idea .....

Streetwiseguy said:

I'd get a government job and have a gold plated pension, and be retired already.

Yup.

I'd probably become a teacher.

The money's the same, but the hourly pay is about double, and I would have retired 3 years ago

I think I would have went into the graphic design program at college rather than industrial design. 

At the time print was just about dead and the program was still focused on traditional graphic design. That changed when I was about halfway through getting my degree when they started focusing on UI/UX. 

My friends in graphic design are laughing to the bank now because everyone with an online presence is wanting a UI/UX designer and is willing to pay handsomely for it.