What did you do for a career and would you pick it again?

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Crosche

Super User
Dabbler said:
@phaxtris and @Xyphota - Apologies to you both. I met you both in the same week, and I still have you both cross-wired from time to time. :eek:

I was also on the way to @phaxtris house, when @Xyphota called, and I was trying to find it, while google maps has a serious mistake on it, and I was *very lost*. Many thanks to @xyohota who bailed me out!!!

(I really hope I got everybody straight this time!!)
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It's all Greek to me! lol
 
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historicalarms

Ultra Member
All my life I have been using farm equipment, construction equipment , heavy trucks and I swear, every mechanical design engineer that ever designed a machine, the first day of engineering school it was drilled into them....find the least efficient component of any machine, place it on a table/bench and just start adding parts around it that are going to last longer.
 
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Mcgyver

Ultra Member
Xyphota said:
I know it definitely wouldn't hurt to get it, but If I hypothetically got a job offer today to live my dream as a plumber (LOL), would you still turn it down?
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Are you prepared to saddle yourself forever with today's dream, or might the dream change as life unfolds?

My sense is the P.Eng's value is less as practical knowledge than as a credential, that is moving from degred engineer to P.Eng is mostly about ethics and professionalism vs engineering and design. BUT....its a big credential, gives you big credibility with the rest of the world. A heck of a lot of engineers never build or design a thing, but they carry the credential. Lets say I spend 1/2 of every waking moment for the next 20 years intensively studying engineering and the other 1/2 of the time designing and building amazing things with that knowledge. Another guy is a P.Eng and out school gets a project management job, he's never made anything or done an engineering calculation in anger. Twenty years from now we walk into a meeting, bunch of people who don't know either of us. Who do you think will be taken as having more technical credibility?

The smart way to play the game of life is to think in terms of probabilities and get the odds on your side as much as possible. Maybe one day you are bidding on a big job and (as everyone letting the work is a P.Eng) it helps them believe you can do it, or you want to buy a plumbing business and need vendor financing, or get a bond for some huge job and have a meeting with banker about it, whatever. There a million scenarios where that accepted credential will help you.
 
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Downwindtracker2

Well-Known Member
I'm a retired millwright. I started out as carpenter. I have Red Seals in both trades. I was working as a carpenter rigger with a guy, Lee. "Lee, you're pretty smart. ( If he played chess, he would have been a champion. He was that smart.))How come you're a carpenter ?" His answer " So long as I make more than a university professor." We did. I took that to heart .
 
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Dan Dubeau

Ultra Member
Take it from someone that has no credentials to their name, get them whenever and wherever you can earn them. If somebody else is paying for it, even better. They might not matter now, but you never know what curveballs life might throw at you in the future.

Young me was too damn stubborn to figure that out, but older me wishes he could strangle that guy.....you can't put an old head on young shoulders.

You'll never have more free time than when you're young to pursue those things, as you get older the cumulative responsibilites stack up and suck the free time, money and motivation out of your life faster than you can replenish it. Especially if you add kids, house etc.....The little time it takes to complete that now, will pay dividends the rest of your life.

My BIL is a P. Eng, and if you stacked up our hands on skills and fulfilling project accomplishments we'd both agree I'd come out with a large lead. If you stack up our bank accounts though......He has letters behind his name that carry weight and clout. I, I can show you pictures on my phones of all the things I've worked on, designed and built :D.........He's always interested in those though, and everytime we talk the conversation is always heavily weighted into talking about my current projects...whatever that's worth....

My advice in a nutshell. Get the P. Eng. and hop around a bit to gain experience. Leverage the designation to provide more value to employers and earn more money. Then build the home shop of your dreams and pursue machinig/welding as a hobby. Some places love a hands on engineer. Some places the trades will run you off the floor......
 
Xyphota

Xyphota

Ultra Member
I'm still not convinced its worth it just for the sake of the title, but the current plan is to stick with it.

Unrelated, I started on some ADHD medication for the first time in in my life recently, and that has made the job much more bearable so far. Clearly the answer all along was to do drugs <|:^)
 
C

Crosche

Super User
Xyphota said:
I'm still not convinced its worth it just for the sake of the title, but the current plan is to stick with it.



Unrelated, I started on some ADHD medication for the first time in in my life recently, and that has made the job much more bearable so far. Clearly the answer all along was to do drugs <|:^)
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Good for you for seeking and getting help; an important step no matter what direction you go.

If you are really, really bored, you are welcome to help me sort out my CNC issues :)
 
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Dan Dubeau

Ultra Member
Xyphota said:
I'm still not convinced its worth it just for the sake of the title, but the current plan is to stick with it.

Unrelated, I started on some ADHD medication for the first time in in my life recently, and that has made the job much more bearable so far. Clearly the answer all along was to do drugs <|:^)
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Congrats on the meds. Only recently over the past 2 years have figured out that I have ADHD, and boy does it sure explain a lot of things.......all so obvious now.....The one good thing to come out of the covid lockdowns I guess.....

I am in process, and hope to one day have such clarity.
 
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Mcgyver

Ultra Member
Xyphota said:
I'm still not convinced its worth it just for the sake of the title,
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Then you are too young and inexperienced to know how important credentials can be. That doesn't mean its right that the world is that way, only that it is. Not said with any malice, just tyring to get you to see reality which can be very hard to do from one's own pardigm....but thats why you asked for advice, right? Great first step. Now...really listen to the well reasoned accounts arrived at with the greater visibility experience brings. End of the day, its your life and your call, but don't be too ready to piss off future you....you'll have to live the guy one day!

As you say, you'll stick with it - imo, that is the best call you could make.
 
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Mcgyver

Ultra Member
lol, glad you didn't take it the wrong way.....you're smart though because you see it (none of us know everything) and asked for help. Like Will Rogers said, "we're all ignorant, just if different things"....or something like that.
 
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Dan Dubeau

Ultra Member
The older I get and the more I learn and figure out, the less I know. I would have loved to have had access to forums, and the internet like this when I was growing up, and going through highschool/college. I'd like to think I would have made a few different choices that didn't pigeon hole future Dan, but then again I'm not so sure. It would have broadened my horizons for sure. Growing up in a small town, with small narrow minded viewpoint of the world beyond my borders. I was only a few years too late. The lost generation between x and millennials that grew up primarily without tech and was raised by a generation prepping us for a world that was no longer there.

Think of and calculate your education ROI. Figure out how much time you need to invest into getting the designation, then figure out how much your time (as a young engineer now) is worth. Then figure out how much extra having that designation could potentially earn you, and how long it will take to pay you back. Your time now, is relatively cheap (and available) now. As you get older and gain experience it won't be. It's a big world out there and it's constantly changing. You don't yet know where you'll be in 10 years, but getting it now could open a really cool door for future Xyphota.

I wish more schools would explain degrees, and diploma programs like that. Maybe we'd have less student debt crisis when people realize their bachelor of arts degree majoring in historic basket weaving has an ROI timeline of 327 years, with 3 available roles in the entire world. Maybe it would qualify you to work at a renaissance fair and make $150 a weekend.
 
phaxtris

phaxtris

(Ryan)
Premium Member
Premium Member
Dan Dubeau said:
I wish more schools would explain degrees, and diploma programs like that. Maybe we'd have less student debt crisis when people realize their bachelor of arts degree majoring in historic basket weaving has an ROI timeline of 327 years, with 3 available roles in the entire world. Maybe it would qualify you to work at a renaissance fair and make $150 a weekend.
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That's not in the buisness model, university's are major for profit operation now, they don't care what you take or how useful it is, so long as you keep paying tuition.

Part of that problem IMO, highschool teachers, most of them don't have the life experience to know that university isn't the magic bullet...at least not for everyone, most of them went from school, to school back to school. So what do they do, push absolutely everyone to go to university, now kids head there thinking that's what they HAVE to do, they pick some kind of bs degree because they really don't know what they want to do and feel they need a degree, come out the other end with a bunch of debt working at Starbucks with there useless arts history major.

I think university is good, for some things, engineering for sure...degrees that have jobs, but so much of it is just fluff, and some people just don't have the aptitude for uni.

I'm not a uni grad, there was no way to afford it, so I went with what worked for me, but if you can afford it and it works for you, it pays dividends. I have a handful of friends who are engineers, etc, I make the same and more than some, but I work a shit load harder, no vaycay days, etc etc, they have benefits I will never have, and I am definitely envious of that some days

Plus none of them have ever taken a sh!t in a porta pottie at -25
 
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