electrician as a career path?

Try it. I worked up through journeyman level and while getting ready to complete my masters test, one of the instructors advised me that I was just a few classes away from getting a BSEE. We were on our fifth week of 100° + days so I was an easy sell :).

The EE degree will open a lot of interesting doors for you but if you have the trade backing you up, you will never want for work.

Look for your local I.B.E.W That is the Electrical Union. Go there and do what you have to to get in. They will pay you well, Give you great bennies and send you to school to better yourself in the trade. I was in the union, till I had medical reasons for leaving. Once you get Your A card you will be set ...

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Originally Posted by Quick Orange

+1. It's tough, but if you can do it, why not? With much respect to the people saying school will always be there, you're at a unique time where you actually can go to school. I know a lot of people in your same boat that decided to go after a trade. It worked out for a few years, but there's a ceiling to career growth without a degree. We tend to accumulate stuff (wife, kids, bills, toys) that keep us from pursuing things like school. Even if you don't go with Electrical Engineering, the piece of paper you get at the end is worth it.

This one.

If you want to give it a shot, then definitely go for it. It is the only way you will find out if you like it or not. However, I think it would be quite naive to leave college for it without finishing a degree of some sort. After all, with some exceptions, most degrees can be lumped into one category that could be called a "persistence degree". They show that you are willing to stick something that you don't enjoy out and that you have at least a shred of motivation and drive to become something.

I found myself in a very similar situation. I was at college and could not stay interested in anything no matter how hard I tried. Since I've always had a passion for cars, I figured that I might as well go learn about something that I like. So I went off to an auto tech school.

I went through the tech school and did fantastically. I started to look for a job while I was still in classes. I looked and looked. I could not find anything within the auto field and tried to look elsewhere, however my options were extremely limited. The only places that employers would even look at me were auto places, general labor, or retail stores. Almost everything else required a degree of some sort. It didn't matter what, but just an undergraduate degree. This job search was enough to convince me to go back to college when I was done and finish a degree, just to have it.

In the time between when I finished the tech school and when I went back to college I was working in an auto shop. It was a great time and I enjoyed it for the most part, but I realized that it wasn't how I wanted to spend my life, for a few reasons. Working in a shop environment definitely takes its toll on a body over the years. Wages aren't bad, but they would get to a point where it's really tough to make more. Like Quick Orange said, most college graduates reach this point fairly fast. Tool bills stack up very, very, very fast. And worst of all, being around cars all the time (whether I wanted to or not) was taking its toll on my passion for them.

In the end, I was looking forward to going back to college and am very happy that I made this decision now when I'm young and not later in life when I am dealing with parts of life that come later (wife, family, mortgage payments, etc). I still love cars and enjoy working on them, and I am currently looking for a job in the auto field again. But I don't want to be stuck as a mechanic. I want to have the option to get out from under a lift and to come home with clean hands if I choose. I've heard many people who work as laborers say something along the lines of, "I work hard and get dirty so my kids won't have to." I've heard it from so many different people who have lived their lives living and breathing their trades that it would be stupid to ignore it. I'm not saying that trade work isn't a great profession, it's just not for everyone, and it's a good idea to have options. It is good to have a trade to fall back on though if times are tough...

I did union ironwork for twenty years. Mostly steel erection. Worked for big outfits like American Bridge, Allied Structural Steel, Bechtel and many smaller ones. Working in the construction trades you'll never get rich but if you're willing to hit the road when work gets bad you'll make a living.

An electrician is way better off then an ironworker. You can always get side work locally when times get tough. All the years I did iron work no one ever needed steel erected in their yard. I know nothing about college but it seems like the best idea for the earning potential. Maybe it would be best to finish college and get to CEO level. Even if you had to settle for a paltry $500,000 a year that ain't half bad. :)