bmaca455

Military for me. Pretty much everyone in my family ends up doing construction weather they have a college degree or not (its a family business) so I figure the military will be the only way I will ever be able to travel around and see all the places I would like to before I settle down to a labor intensive 50 hour work week.

jinxy

what branch. are you enjoying it?

SkunT

military for me. after this enlistment though im done. I will have 8 years in and hopefully will transfer to another DOD or Govie job after this and when im 39 I will be retired. I have been to a ---- load of countries, prolly done things most people wouldnt even think about doing and I can honestly say I pretty much enjoy what I do. The military has taken pretty good care of me and my wife. The hours suck *** though. im up at 5am everyday and I am still at work right now at 5:10 in the evening. I also usally work a saturday or 2 at this command per month.

Degree.....yeah, its alright, but when it comes down to it, experience is where its at. An example, my brother is a welder, been doing it for a few years, and makes more than the wyo tech graduate at the same level he is. My sister-in-law and brother in law both have degrees and both dont use them. One has a degree in comp programming, and the other has a degree in graphic design and marketing...both dont use them. money and years of a life well wasted IMO.

90dx

Well welcome to the real world it sucks.That being said you will take it dry for the first 5 years or so until you build some experience and then it will pay off in the end.The benifit of education is that in the long run you cane move up the ladder to make the 70+K.For alot of us that are in trades etc you avoid the big student loans etc and make good money within the first year but you end up topping out at say 35-60K and unless you pursue Supervision/Project Management etc most will never get to make the big bucks.It basically comes down to how hard are you willing to work and what you put into regardless of what path you choose.

hotrex

buy a chinese welder.
hahaha i mak emore a week now than my mother, who saves lives and gives people needles ect.

amen for china welder

jwn7

i graduated in december

i haven't done ---- since. maybe i'll find a job tommorow

bmaca455

I'm still in school now actually, but I will be doing marines min. If I can get my act togeather and get into a bit better phycical shape though I could probley get the test scores to do whatever I wanted.

SkunT

its Marines. you better get a little pride in yourself also.


so...your in school as in college or in school as in high school?

N1ghtM0nkey

If you get really lucky sometimes you can find a company / corporation that provides nice benefits like tuition reimbursement. My mom got ahold of a company that provides that and now she's got her masters and landed a few semester or two long teaching jobs at EIU and some community colleges.

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do yet. I'm looking more into schooling for certifications rather than degrees since I figure I'll always have a certification to fall back on, rather than a degree. The certifications I've been looking at typically are much cheaper than a full 2-4 years of college at a university.

I'll probably get an ASE sooner or later, since those guys can always find work, if nowhere else then at a dealership or something. I really want to get into the IT field though, but the outlook for that field of work around here is kind of grim.

Good luck with whatever you do, though.

mechsoldier

I'm gonna have to agree with the military thing. I was going to UTI (hotrodU) in phoenix for auto and diesel technology and then I got sick of my lights getting shut off, realized the school was an outright ------- scam and joined the Army. I'm a mechanic in the Army now, which doesn't pay as well as a good mechanic normally would, but hey, I made almost 36k tax free this year being deployed (which you WILL be if you join the Army or Marines). It sucks I hate it, I've been in for 2 and a half years now, and I'm done in less than a year. If you have a degree you can become an officer and they make REALLY good money, just google 2006 officer pay charts. Officers don't have to do any manual labor or anything but are generally regarded as douchebags.

Upsides are the kickass benefits I get with VA loans and everything. I got my ASE Master Cert, I have people offering me jobs already, I write for a magazine. I have around 15k dollars saved up and I'm 22. The 3 and some odd years I gave were kinda shitty, but I'm definitely set up better than any of my friends who didn't join....

I'm with somebody else, I'll take experience over education. Let's face it, most men make their money working blue collar jobs like construction, mechanics, warehouses workers. I know I'm not the type of person that can sit behind a desk and I realized that at the age of 15 or 16 (when I decided that I wanted to be a mechanic). Pick something you're happy with and take that as far as you can.