College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

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Jbrow327
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College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by Jbrow327 »

There seems to be a fetish with recommending the skilled trades over a college degree. Yes, a skilled trade is better than a liberal arts degree, but not a good STEM degree. All I hear is how much skilled tradesmen earn from reddit. 100k a year this and that. They say it as if it's normal. If the majority of tradesmen were earning that much, there wouldn't be a shortage. Everyone would want to do it because it's supposedly high paying. Looking at BLS average salaries tells the real story. Why do people say this? Discuss.
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Dave B
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by Dave B »

We need far more tradesman and far fewer college degrees for the sake of college degrees. The country needs to get back to making s**t, and spend less time moving money from one place to another while skimming a profit off the top.

You can make good money in trade, the best will make money with some business savvy, whether from education and intuition.
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by highpilgrim »

Is this in Utah, or Colorado, or even mizzery?

Discusss.

Btw: do you ever hike anything, or just come up with questions from the void? And if so, is that your full-time job, or part-time, or hobby?

Also discuss.
Last edited by highpilgrim on Thu May 06, 2021 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by James2015 »

Whatever is right for people -- suit the career to the person. I'm a college prof and I see a ton of students who are Biology majors and I'm not sure what the major is going to do for them. 80% of them enter thinking they will be a doctor, and those that get into med school will do very well, but it's insanely competitive. Then there are lots of other careers that a general biology major will set them up for (grad school, biotech, allied health professions, etc), so some will go into those pursuits, but I think it's become a default to go to college, when maybe a trade would suit some of them better. But college is also a safer space to enter adulthood, so the socializing and connecting that happens is valuable. I just think the expectations of what college will provide are often out of whack, but we're all often pretty delusional as teenagers.
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by DArcyS »

eh. never mind...
Last edited by DArcyS on Thu May 06, 2021 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by cottonmountaineering »

my anecdotal experience below:

ive been an auto mechanic, wind turbine tech, railroad (union), couple other skilled trades
if you find a union job you get good benefits and decent pay, however you are either doing super dangerous stuff and/or you will break your body in a couple decades. there are hardly any union jobs left in the states.
blue collar work you top out in pay after a few years experience with no room for advancement

i switched to IT and was able to surpass my previous best salary after about 3 years (no college), dont have to be cold AF outside living out of gas stations in some 5,000 population town, tons of room for advancement

BLS statistics is the real story, most blue collar workers get paid poorly. there is no employee shortage in blue collar work, only greedy companies not paying competitive wages
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by Jbrow327 »

cottonmountaineering wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:49 pm my anecdotal experience below:

ive been an auto mechanic, wind turbine tech, railroad (union), couple other skilled trades
if you find a union job you get good benefits and decent pay, however you are either doing super dangerous stuff and/or you will break your body in a couple decades. there are hardly any union jobs left in the states.
blue collar work you top out in pay after a few years experience with no room for advancement

i switched to IT and was able to surpass my previous best salary after about 3 years (no college), dont have to be cold AF outside living out of gas stations in some 5,000 population town, tons of room for advancement

BLS statistics is the real story, most blue collar workers get paid poorly. there is no employee shortage in blue collar work, only greedy companies not paying competitive wages
Damn! What IT work do you do without a degree? How did you get the job?
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by Jbrow327 »

highpilgrim wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:41 pm Is this in Utah, or Colorado, or even mizzery?

Discusss.

Btw: do you ever hike anything, or just come up with questions from the void? And if so, is that your full-time job, or part-time, or hobby?

Also discuss.
Yes I do hike. Just not any big mountains yet. Will be doing some this summer.
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by cottonmountaineering »

Jbrow327 wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:56 pm
cottonmountaineering wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:49 pm my anecdotal experience below:

ive been an auto mechanic, wind turbine tech, railroad (union), couple other skilled trades
if you find a union job you get good benefits and decent pay, however you are either doing super dangerous stuff and/or you will break your body in a couple decades. there are hardly any union jobs left in the states.
blue collar work you top out in pay after a few years experience with no room for advancement

i switched to IT and was able to surpass my previous best salary after about 3 years (no college), dont have to be cold AF outside living out of gas stations in some 5,000 population town, tons of room for advancement

BLS statistics is the real story, most blue collar workers get paid poorly. there is no employee shortage in blue collar work, only greedy companies not paying competitive wages
Damn! What IT work do you do without a degree? How did you get the job?
not divulging my current job but its one listed on this page
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-in ... y/home.htm

They all say bachelors degree but small/mid size companies dont care as long as you have the skills

there is a major shortage of security analysts, pays well, but is boring AF... you can usually get offers if you go to a "boot camp"
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by madbuck »

Dave B wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:38 pm and spend less time moving money from one place to another while skimming a profit off the top.
I know this is a throwaway thread, but so much this =D>
There is no shortage of interesting and useful problems to solve, services to render, or novel works to create; there is nobility in creating something-from-nothing.
But there's so much celebration of wealth creation in zero-sum arenas, exploiting information and power asymmetry, and human-created loopholes.

We need tradespeople and STEM folks with liberal arts sensibilities (you can have a right or left political outlook, but at least let it be informed by historical and cultural knowledge).
We need liberal arts and intellectual folks of all kinds with an understanding of value of craft, design, and service work.

Look at how many people these days don't even read a d@mn book in a year!
We should also ask, have you used a drill, repaired a piece of clothing, or looked under the hood of your car? (Edit: or fixed something on your own bicycle?)
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by timisimaginary »

highpilgrim wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:41 pm Btw: do you ever hike anything, or just come up with questions from the void? And if so, is that your full-time job, or part-time, or hobby?

Also discuss.
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Re: College vs skilled trades. What's your take?

Post by pvnisher »

No one's going to say to follow your passion, find what you love and you'll never work a day in your life, enjoy the grind, work for yourself, get that bread?!

Without meaningless, empty platitudes, what else have we got?!
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