Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The case for trade school

Trade school come out making $100K year seen it uh hunnerd times

Went through the IBEW apprenticeship too. Pay is great, I've only had to work outside of the local twice. I usually had to work 6 months to make what my wife made in a year teaching with much better benefits overall.

I thought we hated unions here?

Is a trade school any school that is not college?

One of the reason I went into the Air Force was because I did know what I wanted to do.
Wound up a computer programmer, 4month school and a year+ OJT..

There were quite a few schools and jobs that trained computer people. Chubb, Met Life, Grumman, etc...
You could also do the College route too. W/O a degree you can forget management.

Some places will just throw out a resume that doesn't show College.

Yep, son did his 2 years at a CC[welding].
First year at Steel Dynamics he just topped $100K
Last year he made $130K

Went to a 2 year Tech College and received an Assoc. Degree in Architectural Design and Drafting, graduated and right away had 4 offers for good jobs. Worked 3 years in the trades and decided to go back and get my Teaching Degree in Technical & Vocational Education. Graduated and again had three good job offers. Ended up teaching in a Vocational /Technical HS, where students spent 1/2 days learning Math, Science, and English and the other 3 hours a day doing hands on learning in 12 different fields. Very well equipped labs with current state of the art equipment and teachers with a degree and min. of 5 years experience in their field, or others that didn't have degree's but just vast amount of work experience.
They attended for their Junior and Senior Years. Most went right to work out of HS, others went on to College and studied in there chosen field, many of those colleges gave advanced credit for their work in HS, meaning they could graduate a full Semester early.
In the years I taught I had many of my students go on to become successful Architects, Draftsman, Salesman and Builders.
All during my 31 years of teaching I had a part-time job designing and drawing Custom Homes for builders in my area. Evenings, weekends and summer vacations, all out of the convenience of my house.
21 years ago I retired, and just kept my little sideline, working about 15 hours a week. Switched over to CAD and still do everything from home.
My part time work at age 77, pays anywhere from $70 to $125/hour and gives me fun money beyond my SS & Teacher Pension. My fellow teachers who taught English, Math, and Science work a Walmart for $19/hr for extra money or something to do with their spare time.
There is nothing wrong with an education in the Trades, through Apprenticeships, Tech Schools, or BS Degrees in specific occupations.

A building trade gets tough about the time you hit 40. I got a government maintenance job at 36, have a good pension plus SS and a small union pension. A pension is important, needs to be a consideration for young people.

Preach it, Mike Rowe.

EVERY kid in high school needs to see this. Not all sucess stories are found in college.

I haven’t read all of this but my brother went to ITT in Portland and finished after two years with job offers working on cell phone towers and making twice what I was making as a state employee with a four year degree.

Where I live plumbers are booked way out and seem to make great money. Makes me think it would be a good way to go for my some of my kids.

My daughter is looking at a three year program for a certificate to do ultrasounds. seems to make decent money in has jobs available. She will be investing three years in her education as opposed to the six my wife and I each put in each of ours making about double coming out.

On the other hand, my college roommate went back to school and got his masters in outdoor recreation. I did not think He would find a real job at all and thought he would be in trouble. Instead, he spent the last two decades teaching kids how to fish, Climb, kayak, etc. for good money and benefits. I am happy for him but Makes me a little jealous...