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Need help deciding on major/career

#21
Ironbar said:
Is this enough for you or would you like more?
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I've been around long enough to take all labor market forecasts with a grain of salt. When I was 20, there was going to be a dire shortage of college professors due to impending retirements. What happened instead was that professors were replaced by lower cost labor, and by automation. This could happen in any of the skilled trades as well.
 
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#22
Petroleum geologist. Good money and outdoors.

Construction management will get you (eventually) a management gig at the project level - like maybe a position with a general contracting firm

Mechanical engineers make a decent living and get to visit job sites.

Hope this helps!!
 
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#24
I've actually known guys with Bachelor's degrees who could have worked behind a desk, but chose blue-collar jobs in Oil & Gas where they ended up making more money that they would have behind a desk.
One guy was even offered a better job, behind a desk (at his current employer) & refused it, because he liked working in the field.
 
#25
I never got any good advice on university and career choice. I was told go to university and do a degree that leads to a job. So, I did that. But took a series of left turns.

I joined the army because I thought it would be interesting. There I did things that I never thought of. I left the army to do a graduate degree. No one in the class had done anything like I had done and none had managed as many people or worked with as big a budget. I came out of that with a career plan. I never did anything on that plan. Instead, I worked in academic research, venture capital, public markets, consulting, and as an executive at a company. I am now happily unemployed (having sold the company for a good payday) and am evaluating other opportunities. I have had an uncertain, varied, and interesting career path.

So, my advice to others:
1. Do a degree that you are interested in. Don't worry about career prospects.
2. Don't think about jobs you want, think about things you want to do and find jobs that let you do those things.
3. Develop sales skills. You will always need to sell; if nothing else, your new boss that you can do what he/she needs,

If I could do it all again, I would do things completely differently and make none of the same choices, yet I think I would end up in the same place. I haven't always been the richest in my peer group, but haven't been the poorest. I have some of the best stories. I have interesting and diverse friends. I am not afraid to take risk. I always have fun.

Next up for me, one more kick at the can for retirement money and go back to school for that philosophy degree I always wanted.
 
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#26
bassdude51 said:
Ya got one minute? Youtube clip from The Graduate. Career choice.

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BSEE working at a petrochem facility for 26+ years and.....wait for it.....more than a few of the plants here make PLASTICS!

@southpaw723 you may want to read the book "What Color Is Your Parachute?".
What Color Is Your Parachute? 2017: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers: Richard N. Bolles: 9780399578205: Amazon.com: Books
I came across it during the 2000 recession while watching an engineering group go from 180 employees to 90. Looking back, I'd wish I had read this book earlier in life, try to figure out what to do everyday that is enjoyable, and then see if it pays enough. The absolute best is to be paid well to do something you enjoy. The worst is to spend a fortune(hock your future earnings) for a worthless piece of paper OR find out 20 years into "work" that you've always hated your work. I'll share my path to a place(engineering in a multi-national firm)- that pays well, is not boring, and I actually enjoy doing.

My first go round, a miss-choice of mechanical engineering(was extremely boring to me) led to me lasting 3 semesters and returning to 3 jobs(fulltime day job + 2 part time jobs) + a band for 10 years. Should've known not to do Mech Engr since Grandpa and Dad gave me a World War II tube radio to "take apart and put back together" when I was 4 years old to keep me quiet & busy and later electric trains. Or when Mom punished my brother and me on different levels of our home only to come home and find a morse code telegraph run from upstairs to downstairs using a toy train transformer for power + nails in boards wrapped with thin wires + cut up metal Sucrets(?) box for the telegraph key and bent piece of metal at the other end over the nail that would vibrate. Did night school for electronic technician during the 3 jobs era but only long enough to learn how to solder very nicely AND maintain/work on tube amps(esp. my SVT back then). Finally got a BSEE at 32 or so and then went into instrumentation and control systems, learn about and see new tech gear everyday. Wifey likes it too when her PC needs work, the computer controlled fridge needs a few parts(instead of replacing), the dishwasher motherboard goes out, or we need to get realtime data from one of our vehicles with a laptop.
 
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#28
I was reading a biography from a successful person and this is how they summed up their college experience:

They were getting a degree in a field that had 300 people in the same graduating class and there was only 3 job openings in the whole country. That is when they decided to find a career with 300 openings and only 3 people graduating.
 
#30
I got my degree in Engineering Geology and eventually became licensed in Geology, Engineering Geology, Civil Engineering and Geotechnical Engineering. It took a considerable amount of effort and passing 36 hours of tests to get there, but the ROI was high. I would not even have been able to take those tests without a degree.

I got burnt out every 10 or 15 years, but a complete career change would have meant drastic pay cuts. I changed companies a couple times for a change of pace, which worked, but ended up in management at about year ten. Ultimately I became the CEO of the company where I grew up professionally, which was a huge career change. By the time I retired seven years ago, I was approaching burn-out on management but I still love the company. In fact I was over there today just chewing the fat with some of the folks.

Anyway, people who have college degrees make more money on the whole than those without. But it matters what the degree is in. Liberal arts and fine arts degrees generally aren't going to get you into jobs that pay as much as degrees in STEM disciplines. That's not to say there aren't high-paying jobs in non-STEM fields, but they are more scarce, and you have to be really good at what you do.
 
#31
Honestly, if you can get an engineering degree from a top school like MIT or something, you will be able to dictate where your career goes. You'll be able to pick and choose, and sometimes create that perfect job. And even if you can get an engineering degree from a decent school, you'll get a job immesiately; possibly before you graduate if you work a good internship.

My dad got a degree in petroleum engineering, but the company had amazing support, and ended up paying for an MBA and then a law degree, so my dad transitioned around as he wanted. One thing he has mentionedone, though, is that he would not recommend someone go into that industry now, because, unless you went to Harvard, you're not working for ExxonMobil or anything. That industry has shrunk since he got into it in the late 70s.

My dad, brother, and sister in law all have law degrees, and it has made very clear that work experience makes the biggest difference with respect to pay etc. However, where you got your degree is so important, so find where you are far above average and hammer on that. Much farther down, in third place, would be internships and the experience and connections you make there. If you can land a killer internship the summer before you graduate you may be employed in advance of graduation, which is sweet if you are on school loans etc.
 
#32
Amusingly, the topic at lunch today was environmental remediation. It occurred to me that lot of different fields can be involved: Chemistry, geology, biology, civil engineering, even law. Some of these fields have a useful feature, which is that they offer some options if you discover that being outdoors all the time isn't what you wanted after all.

About STEM, my only misgiving is that STEM is not a panacea for solving the employment problem. The reason is that the lucrative STEM fields are both selective and competitive. How's your calculus? Are you actually interested and driven enough to get through the "weeder" courses? Trying to learn that stuff if you're not interested, while everybody around you is partying, is a tough, tough slog. A point that's often overlooked is that the money is certainly there, but money is rarely the reason why people study those fields. Had you asked me when I was in college, I would have sworn that I didn't care about money or getting a job. I just enjoyed playing with equations, electronics, and computers.
 
#33
I'm going on three and a half years out of college and I still don't know what I want to do with my life :D

I work in business operations. The work is easy and it pays quite well, but I find my job boring and unsatisfying.

I've thought of going back to school but I don't have the slightest idea what for, and I don't want to take on debt just to earn a new piece of paper.

I recently talked to an electrician who came out to our facility for a job. He works more on the sales side of things these days, but he mentioned the job gets him out of the office a lot and earns him nearly 200k a year. Sounds nice but I'm currently unwilling to take the pay cut that I'd need to do to move into the field.
 
#37
When I was gigging hard as a young man, I would spend summers putting new toilet stalls in schools. It was good for some scratch. It was just to hold me over until all the big money came in from my rock star career. Well, that was forty years ago and the big rock star money never happened. However through some weird twist of life I now own the toilet stall company. Nothing I even remotely planned....... All I am saying is this. Live life. Do right by folks and when they open doors for you be gracious and grateful..... We seldom end up where we intended when we start out. But when you live life and do right by folks, opportunities tend to come your way.......... Now, if I had to do it all over again and I wanted to work outdoors. I would be one of those DNR guys with the big fast motor boats.... Yeah, that's where I would be.
 
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#38
buzzbass said:
sorry to hear that. that used to be somewhat of an oasis career wise
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I started in the early 90's and it was a great career path. Classifieds in the paper had pages of openings starting at $20 an hour with 5 years experience. I was making $13.50 an hour for just being a body on the floor. Considering that minimum wage was $4.25 an hour at the time, I used the extra bump in pay to pickup a few night classes here & there, learned took the manuals home and taught myself how to program Fanuc controlled machines. It wasn't fun working 60 hours a week and spending the off time studying but I thought it would pay off...

During the mid-90's, things started to change. Mandatory overtime turned into voluntary unpaid time off and parts that used to be made in house were being removed from the box that said "Made in South America" to boxes that said "Made in America." I saw the writing and opened the paper and all those job offerings from just a few years ago were down to just a small handful. I ended up beating out over 100 people applying for a job that offered less money hourly than when I started 5 years ago but I was told that there was more room for advancement in the long term...

Apparently, there was room for advancement about 10 years before hand. The guys that came up from nothing became the floor supervisors and stabbed everybody in the back that showed any initiative. The same day when my supervisor saw me studying during my lunch, that was the day I had a target on my back. It was the same story at pretty much all the small shops I worked at ever since.

At the beginning of my career, I was just throwing parts in a machine, pushing the start button and cleaning out the machine while making $13.50 an hour. There were different departments for the programming and setting up the machines and they were paid a lot more for doing a lot less. After 15+ years, I was programming by hand (G&M codes, no CAD/CAM), setting up, running, cleaning and told by the owners to help my supervisors when they had problems and was making $15.00 an hour.
 
#39
Hmmm.... If I could do it all over again.......

1) Chemical Engineering or Materials Sciences. To me, related fields. Industry is always looking for better and/or less expensive materials. By better, how about water soluble plastics. A real thing. And from where I sit, there is a lot more work to do in vague and general field of materials sciences.

2) If you can handle it, a double major. One in the Maths & Sciences, the other in the Arts. Or a minor in one or the other. To show that you can think in more than one way, that you can be flexible. Maybe my view is skewed by having lived in Silicon Valley most of my life, but I have known lots of engineering types who were incapable of being anything other than engineers, they were barely people.

edg
 

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