Wife

[Ian]

Good perspective, Keith. I was brought up by a family of school teachers ranging from K through graduate including special ed, all from the boomer generation that believed the ONLY path to success was "go to college, get a degree in a career field, get a job, and work that job for the rest of your life". Well, the world changed and they hadn't figured that out yet. Trusting and believing their well-intentioned advice, I tried it until I could take no more and finally took a detour: Actually dropped out of my ME/physics education in the last year to work for a major aerospace company and see what I was getting myself into. Best move I ever made was to get a good dose of the "real world", because I discovered I hated engineering. I hated college. Nothing in the normal fields interested me. So after a few years working I quit my job and went to what DID interest me, which was the trades. Automotive service was my choice and I put myself through a most excellent associates program and full-time apprenticeship, ending up at the top of the heap and working for a good dealership which kept me up to speed with all the factory training that was available. Every day at work is a day at school, learning something new and doing something I liked.

Trades will never make you rich, buy you'll never want for work if you're good at what you do and care about quality. The biggest lesson life has taught me is that money isn't everything, but health and happiness IS. If you can be healthy and happy in a high-stress, high-paying environment, more power too you, but you have to learn your limitations and how much of yourself you're willing to "trade" for a paycheck. Not very many people know what they're made of or what they really want out of life when they're about to graduate high school, so it's tough.

 

[Ian]

Life is hard and never fair (I'm teaching them that too).

So true. One big challenge in life is to learn to accept those things as normal without becoming, bitter, cynical, and resentful.

 

[smokeywolf]

1989toddm, it is still possible to earn a living without a degree. My oldest son didn't stick it out to get his degree. He works in the auto parts industry; commercial account manager for a major auto parts chain. He's not likely to be able to take his future family (he's still single) on grand vacations, but his income is pretty good with good health ins.

I will say that if you manage to land a good paying job without a degree, luck had a lot to do with it. Also, take note that I said "job". The best type of "job" out there is called a "position". The category of jobs referred to as "positions" are typically managerial, require less physical effort and more mental effort, enjoy 10-30% higher pay and are the last ones on the list to be laid off when cost cutting comes around. An Associates degree and some luck might get you a "position".

We live in a world now where computers have and are causing every industry to evolve at a rapid pace. People are rarely able to join a "trade" and be confident that that "trade" will still be there 20-odd years later.
I had a specialty. Designing, building and troubleshooting motion picture film handling machinery. My specialty disappeared about 6 years before my intended retirement when motion pictures migrated from analog film stock to digital video. Ironically, I spent at least 10 years designing and fabricating machinery that would transfer an image from motion picture film stock to the digital environment.

During my last 10 years, my design work expanded to designing high precision X-Y-Z motion control stages for cameras and lenses. Found out that anybody going for a BS in mechanical engineering today should strongly consider being double degreed and getting a BS in electronics engineering to boot.

Many folks are now forced to change careers during their working life. This, in my opinion takes a degree from being just an advantage to being an absolute necessity.

One more thing, most of those few good paying jobs that don't require degrees are now being manned by folks with under grad degrees who's jobs were exported or they got replaced by an H-1B visa import.

Strongly agree with Keith on continuing education. I read a lot of tech journals at home and have taken at least 4 classes and audited one in the last 16 years.

 

[Brian Palmer]

My wife dont ask really any more. Ill make the kids VERY happy one day.

 

[Pistolero]

100% agree with you, Smokey. IMO there are "trade school degrees", "general knowledge degrees" and "total BS degrees". A SIL got
a college diploma in, literally, ancient Chinese history. What could she have possibly been thinking during those 5 years? Being very intelligent,
and apparently a hard worker, she managed to switch to a career with a major financial company in NYC, wound up being extremely highly
compensated as a real estate investment expert - nothing whatsoever to do with her degree. So no doubt, being smart and working hard
can go a huge long way to success.

OTOH, getting a degree in engineering, building construction (my college roommate got rich in Fla with this one), accounting, computer science
and a few more are 'trade school' degrees where you can directly expect to get a job in the field you trained in. Also, you will be well paid and relatively
rarely unemployed, if willing to move as needed. The "general knowledge" degrees are somewhat useful, but will probably have little direct influence on what
you do for a job, you can do what you want, but have no special training, so little starting advantage on a trade. The BS degrees (Ancient Chinese history,
underwater basket weaving, various new wave social group studies, and more) will get you nothing much other possibly teaching the same
dismal mess you learned to the next set of suckers, or working as a barista or similar entry level, no skills required, jobs. You CAN turn that into
a great career (like my SIL) but IMO, saving the $50-200K and 4-5 yrs would be wiser, although some places require a degree, even a BS one is OK.

Getting comp sci and/or engineering with some business is really, really solid. IMO, a mech eng degree with a bit of business will set you up
to literally do ANYTHING you choose to do, and succeed because you have learned "how the world works" - which applies everywhere and gives
you a leg up on the folks who have no clue how 90% of stuff works - to there lifelong peril, both personal and financial. You will see a lot of
successful business types are MEs doing something entirely different - but very well.

Sorry to hear about your relationship with your Dad. I was fortunate. While I missed my father a lot because he was deployed a lot, he was a
skilled and patient teacher and could always answer any question I had, to whatever degree of detail I wanted to hear. We had our occasional
disagreements and he was gone far more than was best for us (getting to be a senior naval officer is not easy, takes huge amount of time) my
mother made up for it, a lot. I am retrospectively amazed at what she put up with and how she helped and let us be boys and dealt with the
broken bones and all the rest, much of the time by herself. She also had an amazing sense of humor, which lasted until the end.

Good luck getting clear of Cali, and glad you are committed to helping your kids get started right. I think you are probably correct that the days of
staying in one company are fading, but I did it - in the same division, doing gov't contracting for 34 years while the company mergers and
buyouts changed the name on the door four times but nothing much else.

As to life not being fair, my father pointed that out to me at about age 7 and I still remember
the shock. He was serious. NOTIFY THE MEDIA, does anyone else know about this?!!! I still
remember it clearly, wistfully today, truly shocked then. Somehow my child's mind had always
assumed that the ultimate complaint was "Hey, that's not fair!" That it would not always carry
the weight it did in the household was shocking.

Bill

 

[Reed]

... Trades will never make you rich, buy you'll never want for work if you're good at what you do and care about quality.

Caring about the quality of your work/product. No that is getting hard to find these days. I want to take my car to YOUR shop. Would be a long drive to TX, though.

 

[KHornet]

Education and degrees IMO open doors that would otherwise remain shut.
The more tech the degrees today, the more doors that open. The less
tech degrees may end up as McDonald counter personal.

Paul