Brinkley

golden gophers??????

multi21

Oregon Beavers?

sbelles

Ding ding ding ding

Any progress on the Motor?

930man

well i am not ashamed to say I do not have a college education... I found a field I liked and worked very hard at what I do... I started with a construction Co. 23 yrs ago at an hourly rate of 4.00 hour... Learned my trade and worked y way up! I own Half the company with the person who started the company now.I work all over the country and still love what I do. It may not be as fashionable as a lot of other folks however, it is a very satisfying job. I did it the hard way and i am proud to tell my kids i did it that way!

I will never be out of work b/c i can build anything for anyone..

what ever the kids want to do if they have the passion for it they can make it work.......

dbryant61

First time around, dropped out of college after three full years. Got married, had kids, and was paycheck-to-paycheck broke for 11 years. During last four of those 11 years went to night school at Drexel Univ. for a BS in Civil Engineering.


Worked several years under other licensed structural engineers and got my license in 1995. Opened my structural engineering office in 2002. I now design the anything 930man can build for anyone. :^) Lots of fun with concrete, steel, lumber, and masonry.

930man

don we should hook up!

84-944

I have a HS degree and often wonder what the differences would be if I had gone to college. Hindsight being 20/20, I may have gotten here more quickly but who knows? I worked construction for 20+ yrs, started with boots and a tool belt slowly working my way through the construction process into an office with a white shirt, healthy salary and a lot of responsibility. My difficulty with this was that I was making someone ELSE a lot of money. I left, put my boots and toolbelt back on and started my own company! I love to work as hard as I like to play, the hours seem endless but the rewards are priceless!! After 3 short years we seem to be wildly successful in our field and if all continues as I hope and plan, the rewards will be excesive.

Follow your heart, you can accomplish ANYTHING you set your mind to, focus on serving those whom you work for (boss or customer) and the rewards will follow. Your only limitations are the ones you've set in your own mind.

Let the fun begin!

Brian.

early_grayce

I think it's great we all have such diverse backgrounds/careers
I chose to do way too much schooling...
after HS --> 4 yrs university --> 4 yrs med school --> 3 years of internal medicine residency --> 3 yrs of cardiology residency --> 1 yr of post-cardiology subspecialty
Now I'm just starting to work at the age of 33.
Who woulda thunk it?

I never stopped having fun though... that's the key.
And never forgot the difference between "living to work", and "working to live"!

Eharrison

I'm surprised at all the engineers here.

I'm a Mining Engineer by trade but schooled in Civil Engineering. I paid for 95% of my schooling through credit cards and two full time college jobs (hotel and interning as a surveyor at a quarry). I lived in a studio apartment ($250/month) in a really REALLY bad part of town (I used to answer the door with a gun behind my back if I didn't have anyone coming over), drove a motorcycle for transportation and had no life during those years. I hated doing it but knew there would be an end to it at some point. Food consisted of Ramin, Barilla spaghetti and Ragu, Miller High life (Which is still good by the way). I also switched majors several times and even after graduating, worked in another field.

I went to community college as much as I could because it was a third of the cost, and all the credits transferred. (Why the finance students didn't do this is beyond me.) My tuition and books were put on the credit card so I could whittle away at it through out the year. No student loans for me because I was not a citizen.

My parents were poor growing up. My Dad lived in a one room house smaller than a single car garage, with no plumbing with seven brothers and sisters. My mom lived in the city. They worked hard and made it for themselves, only to destroy everything in the divorce.

I went to good schools while I was young and had a scholarship to go to a uber rich school in the UK. Which gave me the drive to succeed. ANYBODY CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT. You just have to understand that it depends 100% on you and no one else.

sparks259

here's something a bit different and may very well be in the grasp of your students.
i am an electrical contractor in new jersey.
been paying the bills quite well for some time , thank you.
in addition,while i can't quote the source, there has been forecast a severe shortage of ALL trades people in the not so distant future.
i include myself as a bit of a dying breed----- a self-employed tradesman that is not part of any major minority.
it would appear as if the free, white, born in america youth would rather pound keys on a computer rather than make a decent living with their hands.
now before everyone gets up in arms, there was no malice or bashing meant on my part.
imho, most of the young people i see coming into the trades today are of one minority or another.
oh, and by the way, my job is non-exportable.
good luck with your kids.

Crazy Canuck

Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Psychology. (People & Money). University taught me to plan ahead and to think more than any specific information.

I always had a summer job and worked through the school year. My dad was in construction so he managed to get me a couple of summer jobs that weren't particularly fun. I was a general laboror at 14. Worked as a gofer on a construction site one summer. He always managed to find me the ****tiest jobs he could as a way to encourage me to stay in school. It worked.

Then I started to work in the family business. As kind of a hobby my parents started one of Ottawa's first self-storage operations. We now have over 100,000 square feet of self-storage and commercial space on 33 acres (lots vacant). I worked in the office on weekends. I learned retail, buildings etc. A few years later we started to sell trailers and recreational vehicles. So really two businesses, from one site.

At 29 I took over running the companies while my dad was sick and after he passed away. The education was to begin (a practical MBA as one of my dad's friend's has said). I had to learn everything I could to manage the companies. I have to know a little about a lot of stuff - accounting, retail, HR, buildings, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, finance, logistics etc. etc. I restructured and things have never been as strong ever but it was a few years of lots of stress while I got up to speed. Only the last 1.5 yrs. (I'm 34 now) have I become comfortable with what I'm doing. If I didnt' succeed at something I didn't give up. I kept trying until it went the way I wanted. One of the big challenges is the fact that I don't have many peers my age. They're all in their 40s, 50s and 60s.

A few things helped me along the way:
- work hard. Not much pays off like hard work and being unwilling to give up.
- get an education. Critical thinking and the ability to avoid problems before they begin is key.
- Confidence. You can or can't do anything. Either way you're right.
- Ask questions. I've never been afraid to ask questions. I leaned heaviliy on a few of my dad's friends as mentors because of their experiece either when I didn't know something or to just confirm what I was thinking. Don't know? Ask!
- Attitude & interpersonal skills. People skills are as important as knowledge. If you're an ******* people will not want to be around you.
- Think long term.
- Have fun along the way but not at the expense of everything. Balance is good.

My dad told me to do something I enjoyed and was good at and money would follow. It's true.

We hire students every summer. We treat them well. Usually though the first year we have to break them of their mentality that the school system and their parents have perpetrated - they're special, as long as you try its ok etc. Results matter. How you look matters. I talk to them and treat them no better or no worse than any other employee. These are the same lessons my dad taught me.

Crazy Canuck

There are a shortage of tradespeople and it's going to hurt in a few years. Anybody in the skilled trades is going to do very well very soon.

Bull

Oh, and he drives fairly well too.............

dbryant61

930man wrote:

Ill call you Monday and set up a day to drive to Raleigh.

eshane

I have a BS in Metallurgical Engineering from UF (sorry Ohio folks) and work as a missile design engineer with LM (yeah, a rocket scientist). I went to school on the GI bill after 4 years in the Navy. I have been in on the design and production of the Hellfire, Patriot, and JASSM missiles, for you guys that watch the Military Channel. Love the job. About to start DE's , you're never too old to have fun.
Study hard, work hard & above all, have the talent and ability to GET THE JOB DONE! That's what counts, degree or no, ya gotta be willing to do the work nobody else seems to get done.
Watching Daytona right now, gotta scoot................