Trades- Electrician

[Rand0m Profile]

Anyone work a trade for a living? Preferebly as an electrician? Just want to know if you look this line of work. I've been doing the college gig for two years and I don't think it's for me right now. Oh, and hi everyone...haven't been on here for a decent amount of time.

[SavageParrot Profile]

Word up rand0m. Good to see you.

[Hat Rack Profile]

Stick with college. Stay away from the Liberal Arts and learn a trade.

[[ecgn] btt Profile]

Take it from someone who left college after two years and picked up a trade (carpentry). Stay in college. I wish I did.

[YOOPER]

Another vote here for college.

Hell, I went for 12 years...so if I was able to make it, so can you!

[Lord ZOG Profile]

I was a union Electrician (Local 103) for 12 years in the Boston area. I can tell you one thing, you may make a decent coin hourly and the benefits are usually great but you EARN every penny you make.

I called it "Blood Money". You work with every ex-convict illiterate in the country, you freeze your ass off in the winter, suffocate in the summer, breathe all sorts of chemicals, dust and human waste that affects your health not just short term, but long term...and I can't tell you how many times I came home at night, took a long, long shower and counted how many bruises, cuts, gashes oir missing digits I found that I had no idea how I got them.

I remember working in a power plant, running temporary lights for the boiler workers who's job it was to clean the boilers\furnaces or what-ever other goo-encrusted time bomb they were in charge of "maintaining". I was crawling nose-to-ass through a soot encrusted tube in the pitch black with a 55-year old journeyman for the better part of the day, and believe it or not I felt the safest in there. Outside there were arm-sized bolts falling from 6-stories up, bits of wood, tools and other things raining down on us in an atmosphere so thick with dust you could see it "Swimming" in front of you.

I learned a lot, no doubt. I value the experience. I did meet a small percentage of decent people along the way, yet each and every person that I respected told me the same thing, "Get out of the trades if you value your life and your health. And never let your kids follow you into the trades, if you can help it."

That was 15+ years ago, I never renewed my journeyman's license and I'm not regretting that decision one bit.

[DocTrebor Profile]

Bro didnt we have this talk like 2 years ago? LOL...stay in college man. I just finished a 2nd degree now and even if law school doesnt pan out I still got a shit load of options. You might want to look into engineering from the sound of it. Good luck man!!!

[Slaughter2 Profile]

no college

diploma in LPA (Layout Production Art) FYI Ad Design

salesman for a living 250K /yr + (this is my 16th year there)

started at a young 22

my padres always told me I had the gift of gab

voting class clown

I used to hire recent college grads expecting to make 60k a year when they started, fresh out of college with a business degree, I laughed at them

What I notice within the last 10 years, noobs are willing to work less and expect to make more

I never thought I would ever say this, but the generation (generation Y) below me are a bunch of lazy fucks, lol my Dad used to say it about my generation

When first years make any where between 25K-45K

My Wifey is a ER Nurse (she loves her job)
got to be a RN in 2 years going full time, and got her BN night classes for 1.5 and MRN in 2 years at nite as well

We will guide our daughter towards college for sure (saving now BTW lol)
my padres never pushed me in any direction, so we will def have a say in our daughter's tho

she will be graduating high school in '23 lol

[Major Hazard Profile]

A College degree will always say something about you. That you had the stuff to graduate. Find your calling. It took me a while myself. Even then, less then half of all college graduates are working in the same field that they have a degree in 10 years later. In the 80s over 8 years in and out, I went from Accounting to Computer Science to finally graduate with a BS in Information Systems. I graduated into the worst economy since WWII. I only had a few temp positions but was offered a bunch on free internships, but with a family that was impossible to do.
I put myself through college working many different jobs in a grocery store, worked in the college labs and a few internships and temp programming jobs.
I later took a couple of manufacturing systems jobs got familiar with CAD/CAM and worked as a junior manufacturing engineer programming programming circuit board assembly machines, automation machines and robots. After most of that manufacturing went overseas, I got laid off in 2001. I have now found my true calling in systems and networking. I immediately started taking classes in Microsoft 2000, passed my computer technician A+ exam without classwork and got my Microsoft certifications. After a few IT jobs, I started working for my current employer in 2003. I got hired primarily because I had the college degree, a dated degree, but I had a bachelors. It will open doors for you and no one in HR looks down their nose at someone with a degree.
I am now the Senior Systems and Network Administrator for a airport in a state near you. I now in my mid-40s. Funny how life can come full circle back to something related to what I graduated in.

My point: Find what interests you in college and pursue it. If you like electrical work, pursue related Engineering degree so that you do design or even manage electrical work. If you just don't want to do it right now, forget it. This may be your only opportunity to get a degree as life will get too complicated for you to pursue it. Good Luck.

[Major Hazard Profile]

A College degree will always say something about you. That you had the stuff to graduate. Find your calling. It took me a while myself. Even then, less then half of all college graduates are working in the same field that they have a degree in 10 years later. In the 80s over 8 years in and out, I went from Accounting to Computer Science to finally graduate with a BS in Information Systems. I graduated into the worst economy since WWII. I only had a few temp positions but was offered a bunch on free internships, but with a family that was impossible to do.
I put myself through college working many different jobs in a grocery store chain , worked in the college labs and a few internships and temp programming jobs.
I later took a couple of manufacturing systems jobs got familiar with CAD/CAM and worked as a junior manufacturing engineer programming circuit board assembly machines, automation machines and robots. After a few years, I was the senior automation engineer. After most of that manufacturing went overseas, I got laid off in 2001. I found my true calling in systems and networking. I immediately started taking classes in Microsoft 2000, passed my computer technician A+ exam without classwork and got my Microsoft certifications. After a few IT jobs, I started working for my current employer in 2003. I got hired primarily because I had the college degree, a dated degree, but I had a bachelors. It will open doors for you and no one in HR looks down their nose at someone with a degree.
I am now the Senior Systems and Network Administrator for an airport in a state near you. I am now in my mid-40s. Funny how life can come full circle back to something related to what I graduated in.

My point: Find what interests you in college and pursue it. If you like electrical work, pursue a related Engineering degree so that you do design or even manage electrical work by others. If you just don't want to do it right now, forget it. This may be your only opportunity to get a degree as life will get too complicated for you to pursue it. A bachelor's degree will open doors for you, even doors that you never anticipated. Good Luck.

[Wesley Profile YIM]

stay in college dude!

[Rand0m Profile]

Hey everyone, thanks for all of the advice it was very helpful. Especially Zog, since you have actual experience in this field. It helps to ask people who work in the field what it's actually like. I am just trying to figure out what I want to do and it becomes tougher every day with my personality.

I left college before in my first semester out of high school. I then worked full-time for a year and realized I needed to get a degree, otherwise I'd work a dead-end job forever. I went back to college and since have been on the dean's list every semester and have won some awards in my extracurricular activities.

The problem is that if I don't have a definitive path or goal I lose all motivation in whatever I'm doing. I understand I need the degree but without a career path in mind I just lose all motivation. I've been on school break for a month and I've had too much time on my hand to think about this stuff haha. This is something I've been thinking about for years now, though, and I think I'm just over-stressed. It's just tough because when it comes to academics and work I need things to be very structured and ordered. So when the main part of my reason for being in school is a big question mark it is stressful.

I think another thing contributing to this is that I like too much. And I feel like I can succeed in anything I do, so it doesn't really matter what I choose. I don't mean that in a cocky way it's just that I'm very optimistic and persistent.

Anyways, class start tuesday...thank god for me haha. Hopefully, I will be too busy to dwell on this shit and can grind through another semester. I also realize most people change careers 4-7 times in their lifetime so I think I am just going to suck it up and just work for that degree. By the way, I am probably going to major in finance for those interested. Thanks for everyone who gave advice. I guess it helps to just talk to others who have more experience than I.

[SavageParrot Profile]

Well I have a degree in history and politics and it's worth less than the paper it's printed on. You'll never be out of work if you are an electrician.

[Major Hazard Profile]

Rand0m,
My only further advice is to take an internship in your field of study. It may give you a better idea how good of a fit it is.

[Rand0m Profile]

Rand0m,
My only further advice is to take an internship in your field of study. It may give you a better idea how good of a fit it is.

Yes, they deffinitely help in more ways than one. It helps to land a better job after graduating and getting your hands dirty in the field of study to see if it's something you actually like.

Last semester I was involved in something called the Fed Challenge. I really enjoyed it a lot which makes me think I will like finance. A group of us had to look at economic data and present our findings to the fed and make a recommendation to the fed for a change in interest rates or no change in interest rates. We presented in December and at the time the Fed had just recently made a 25bp cut already so we decided on no change ,to wait and see how the previous cut would affect the market. At the time, there was no spill-over from the housing market into other sectors. However, the housing market IS the worst it has ever been and I think we may be seeing spill-over now, although I haven't looked at recent numbers. One thing I realized from doing this project is that the Fed just throws money at all its problems to make Wall Street happy. When you have one bad market and the rest average, or doing well, there really isn't anything to worry about as long as there are no signs of spill-over. But I feel investors will do anything for rate cuts even if we were in a good market just so they can profit. Kinda off topic but I do like economics a lot.