Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What trade would you recommend a young man get into?

You’re channeling the Appalachian pond building thread.

Talk about the serpent eating it’s tail.

From what I’ve seen of the current 20-30 yr olds if one is willing to work 40 hrs there worth keeping not many of them understand the concept of 50-60 hrs most want to come work 10-5 or 12-5 wtf

I spent 35 - 36 years in the electric utilities. I did quite well but I never finished college, therefore I knew nothing when it came time for a promotion. If I would have stayed in the union side I would have been stuck behind guys that were younger then I was but had more company time, therefore, they would have gotten the position I wanted. Was a no-win situation. Only thing I could say is that there were no layoffs and I retired with a decent pension.
My advice would be the young man to take stock of himself and ask what he would like to do 12 hours a day / 6 days a week. Once he can answer that get into that field and get all the training he can. I do agree the electrical side has lots of openings. It's not magic but very few people understand even the basics of it.

All the trades are hurting for talent...
I made my living as a Welder till I gave it up to Farm...there is great money to be made ..I always made more money than the project managers I worked for...I started out with the UA and gave that up pretty quick figuring I could make more money on my own..which I did...
The last year I worked they were paying me stupid money and I was workin with a bunch of young guys with collage that couldn't get jobs in there field...

Lots of great advice above and I can't add much to the years of experience displayed here.

Word from the wise:

Find a skill or vocation that is recession proof.
What does everybody require despite a major economic downturn?

Water
Food/Groceries
Electricity
Heat and Air
Sewer

Position yourself, young man, to survive the coming [bleep].

Add to that list healthcare.

Yes! Huge there, Kingston.

no one for mowing grass?

White boy with a white frame Costas, backwards Tarheels hat, big gold rope chain, 2 exmarks, 2 mexicans, 4 door f-350

Mexis do the work, "Trey" paces back n forth on cell phone cussin his girlfriend beside his truck at every job

Instrumentation, controls & automation. My FIL recently retired as a professor teaching these trades. With a two year associates degree, his students are making as high as $120,000 a year to start! Makes me wonder why the hell I became an engineer with a 97% placement. The 3% was some girl who got pregnant and her mrs degree instead.

Masonry trade is wide open for a youn man in this area.

Tell him I'd trade my considerable turn-key experience for his youth!

Doing machine fabrication with lathes, milling machines, surface grinders, ect, is so satisfying when you first start getting a feel for it that many would do it for nothing. That's why I got involved with it. But the novelty of it wears off after a couple of decades,..and there always some young boys that enjoy doing it so much that they'll do it for pocket change,......just like I did when I was a young boy.

But in any event, the machinist trade has changed so much and is *still* changing so much that it bears little resemblance to the set of skills that I first started learning back in the mid 70's.

It's rapidly turning into something that I don't even recognize.

The computer revolution landed smack dab in he middle of the machine trades a long time ago and at this point, the trade is moving and morphing just as fast as anything else that involves computers.

It's already to the point that a large part of a "machinists" day is spent in front of a computer terminal.

If that's what someone wants, it's there to some extent. But it's become a very difficult trade to keep up with. The things one learns becomes obsolete very soon.

I retired out of the trade 5 years ago and it had already gotten away from me. Not that I'm complaining about it. I was ready to retire, anyway.

But anybody who is thinking about the machine trades these days needs to take a good look at what it is. Chances are it's not what they think it is,...and it's going to be something completely different in 7 or 8 years and then again 7 or 8 years after that.

Bristloe-

You turn out parts on 0.030 tolerance? Location and bore?

For you no problem. You took pride in what you did. Now. It’s not the same.

The thing is,..I talk about how technology has changed the machinist trade because that's the trade I'm familiar with. I'm fairly certain that technology is going to impact a lot of trades in a similar fashion.

A young man needs to be very careful what he launches into these days. Because 10 years from now what he's doing might not require a human. Or maybe technology will allow one human to do the work of 500.

I saw a video a while ago of a CNC operated machine that lays up concrete walls. It can lay out a house in a day. All it needs is a man feeding it material. It just lays it out with no forms or anything. Basically, it's a 3D printer for buildings.

That's just one more example.

the big questions should come first

- what does he like to do ?
- is he “business minded” (have enough common sense to run his own company)

That will make a difference in what he should do

That’s a hard pass. Your knees and back will be blown out and retirement will be miserable.

Electrician best union excellent retirement plan high wages once the apprenticeship is completed and he can go anywhere and work.

I am an apprenticed toolmaker from the 70's that went into management, run the apprentice program for a very large corporation. You want the money go into industrial electronics and maintenance, you don't believe me go to the DOL website and look up potential

Electrician! My good childhood friend is an electrician and does very well for himself. He stays away from residential, and only does industrial. He says residential is cut throat, and that's why he stays away from it.