New Career

[2012ProRMK]

So been kicking around a few options in terms of careers. Im a couple years outta high school and currently enrolled in first year engineering (will probably choose civil) but having second thoughts about it and thinking of going and picking up a trade instead (probably millwright, electrical or instrumentation).
A little skeptical of the engineering route as i'd hate being chained to a desk and like working with my hands, but as I age a bit i am sure that i am gonna get tired of braving the elements.
Also seems to be that a ticket will earn you just as much as a degree without the initial investment (although working in the sticks).

Any engineers or trades guys have any input? Do ya regret going/not going to school?

Thanks

 

[NoBrakes!]

Ticketed red seal millwright for over 10 years, apprenticed right out of high school. I have a few engineer friends and work with A LOT of them, there's only so far up the corporate ladder you can go with a trade. The big jobs go to engineers, eventually... it takes time. I think we pay engineers in training around 90K out of school and starting journeyman are over 100K but OT vs BONUS is a big difference. My father in law is a 30 year mechanical engineer and told me if my boy wants a trade, let him. Shop vs office is a huge difference,it matters where you're comfortable. coveralls or khakis....

 

[LUCKY 7]

my son just started instrumentation last week at Sait. lots of call for those as well as millwrights.

 

[RXN]

I'm a Millwright myself.
Best choice I've ever made.
Spent 8 years working out of the back of a truck living in camps and motels, overhauling natural gas engines and compressors. Loved doing that.
In 2009 things got slow. I jumped ship to another contract company who stuck me on maintenance at a chemical plant. 8 months later I hired on with that plant. (Jan 4 2010). Great benefits excellent pay. Home every night.

If you like mechanical stuff. Grab a Millwright ticket.

 

[whoDEANie]

That's a tough one. You'll definitely have more earning potential as a civil engineer. Be advised not all disciplines of engineering are equal. Civil seems to be one of the disciplines with the highest upward mobility. Even Civil Engineering Technologists have been known to make some pretty big $$$. More often than not though, with money comes responsibility and the potential for a huge amount of stress - you need to be prepared to deal with it if you have high expectations of climbing the corporate ladder.

 

[NoBrakes!]

If you like mechanical stuff. Grab a Millwright ticket.

I always ask "did you fix your bicycle as a kid? If so, be a millwright" if you like clean hands.... instrumentation or electrical are great too. I know some refrigeration techs that do well at work and on the side, electricians can wire a garage or basement if you want some extra cash too.

 

[skegpro]

Tough question.

I am an Instrumentation Engineering Technologist and I got my J-Man.

Spent 12 years in the oilfield from everything from Engineering, Maintenance and sales.

Very versatile education, but tech schools have pumped out way more students than there is demand for right now.

I think the most important question now adays is what industry do you want to hitch your wagon too?

If we get another NDP and Liberal government next term the answer isn't oilfield.

Sure Instrument techs and millwrights make decent money, but outside of the oilfield not as much. (Except nuclear)
Some will argue this point but the fact of the matter is the wages where high because if you had a pulse there was a 200k job with your name on it.

Civil is a great career.
We will always need buildings and roads.

Did you make it through first year engineering? That's the toughest year.

But then again what do I know as I am now farming. Lol

( If you are interested in the oilfield still check out the power engineering tech course in medicine hat, you can come out of school with most of your second class.)

 

[Caper11]

I been a Jman Millwright for over 10 years. I apprenticed right out of high school. Great job, ive got to work on various types of rotating equipment, from gas turbines, to a dual crankshaft engine.
Have you considered power engineering?

 

[TDR]

Chemical Engineer for 25 years. Lots of interesting work in chemicals and refining. Decent starting pay and only goes up from there. Takes a while to climb up but you can’t start at the top if you know nothing. Oldest son is hands on and not a book kid. Got a lucky break and did his 4th class steam ticket and steam time in high school. Out looking for a job right now. It will take him a bit to find a job but he will find something and get to his 3rd. Everyone is different. If you can survive 1st year engineering the rest is a breeze. If you are more hands on a trade might be for you. Both great occupations.

 

[j335]

Both great options. How’s the job placement for new grad engineers these days? Extremely low in oilfield nowadays, but civil will give you optionality.
10 yr petroleum engineer here, total comp is 2.5x higher than my first year with no OT so can’t complain. 40 hr work weeks, home every night, nice being inside in the winter so I feel I took the right job. Way more stress, trades/operations looks to the engineer for answers/sign offs but you’ll get used to it...
My 2nd choice was an electrician... can’t go working with either, of you are questioning your choice already than probably best to get outta your first year while you can get some money back. 1st is challenging so you need to be committed...

 

[freeflorider]

Sounds like money is a big issue, I guess now a days it’s mandatory to go after the money, my advise is do something you love doing because your going to be there a while.
i generally get up at 330am and head out the door to start my day, I don’t see the front door till well after 6 or 7 pm. Not much money chopping trees down but I do it because I like it. 30 plus years now and I still enjoy getting up so I guess I’m a lifer at it.
pays the bills and I’m happy.

 

[skegpro]

Sounds like money is a big issue, I guess now a days it’s mandatory to go after the money, my advise is do something you love doing because your going to be there a while.
i generally get up at 330am and head out the door to start my day, I don’t see the front door till well after 6 or 7 pm. Not much money chopping trees down but I do it because I like it. 30 plus years now and I still enjoy getting up so I guess I’m a lifer at it.
pays the bills and I’m happy.

That's what it's all about.

 

[sledneck__11]

Been a jman in the uranium mines for the past 7 years and am gettin laid off here next month they all have there ups and downs when chasing the bigger coin. Jman there was 56 plus o.t where my hometown is jman around 32. I am now also farming lol made enough money to buy some land and am farming with the old man jusy hoping to do electrical seasonal now.

Tough question.

I am an Instrumentation Engineering Technologist and I got my J-Man.

Spent 12 years in the oilfield from everything from Engineering, Maintenance and sales.

Very versatile education, but tech schools have pumped out way more students than there is demand for right now.

I think the most important question now adays is what industry do you want to hitch your wagon too?

If we get another NDP and Liberal government next term the answer isn't oilfield.

Sure Instrument techs and millwrights make decent money, but outside of the oilfield not as much. (Except nuclear)
Some will argue this point but the fact of the matter is the wages where high because if you had a pulse there was a 200k job with your name on it.

Civil is a great career.
We will always need buildings and roads.

Did you make it through first year engineering? That's the toughest year.

But then again what do I know as I am now farming. Lol

( If you are interested in the oilfield still check out the power engineering tech course in medicine hat, you can come out of school with most of your second class.)

 

[Tchetek]

Any career can be successful. It comes down to how you apply yourself and the relationships you make along the way.

Take the lead, don’t be a drone!

Build and develop your skills until you are confident.

There is no clear path, there are successful and failures of any option.

When you have skills to sell, add business to the career and sell your skills for big rewards or losses!

 

[sethier]

Powerline Technician. The system built 50-60 years ago is falling apart and needs to be rebuilt. New construction coming out every day. Society is always going to need power, anywhere in the world you want to go.

 

[pano-dude]

A friend of mine is a p eng and is now an executive with Enbridge so if big dollars are what you're after this is the path.

I'm a 3rd power eng/gas fitter and worked all kinds of plants from gas, oil, canola to waste water. Moved into commercial building maintenance and now run my own company.

Can't go wrong with any trade or technical training. As said before pick someone you enjoy and the money will come.

 

[eclipse1966]

a friend of mine sent this to me today. Some interesting points and some questionable but we are definitely going thru changes. Even in my field what we did/relied on 20 - 30 years ago is now useless. For example, our office fax machine gets barely used and slowly but surely more and more people (especially younger generation) communicates via text instead of emails.


Things to think about. ( Except for old codgers.) Pass on to your grandkids for career guidance.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Technology of the Future
>>>
>>> Predictions:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 1. Auto repair shops go away. A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical engine has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric engine. Faulty electric engines are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots. Essentially, if your electric "Check Motor" light comes on, you simply drive up to what looks like a car wash. Your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a new engine.
>>>
>>> 2. Gas stations go away. Parking meters are replaced by meters that dispense electricity. All companies install electrical recharging stations.
>>>
>>> 3. All major auto manufacturers have already designated 5-6 billion dollars each to start building new plants that only build electric cars.
>>>
>>> 4. Coal industries go away. Oil companies go away. Drilling for oil stops.
>>>
>>> 5. Homes produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispenses it to industries that are high electricity users.
>>>
>>> A baby of today will only see personal cars in museums.
>>>
>>>
>>> 1. The FUTURE is approaching faster than one can handle!
>>> In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.
>>>
>>> What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years, and most people won't see it coming.
>>>
>>> Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on film again?
>>>
>>> Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975.
>>>
>>> The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore 's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a time, before it became way superior and became mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
>>>
>>> Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.
>>>
>>> Welcome to the Exponential Age!!
>>>
>>> 2. Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
>>>
>>> 3 Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, yet they are now the biggest taxi company in the world.
>>>
>>> 4. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.
>>>
>>> 5. Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
>>>
>>> 6. In the U.S., young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM's Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, only omniscient specialists will remain.
>>>
>>> 6A. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, it’s 4 times more accurate than human nurses.
>>>
>>> 7. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.
>>>
>>> 8. Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car any more. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it; you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.
>>>
>>> 8A. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.
>>>
>>> 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 mi (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles (10 million km).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That will save a million lives worldwide each year.
>>>
>>> 8B. Most car companies will doubtless become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
>>>
>>> 8C. Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla
>>>
>>> 9. Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
>>>
>>> 10. Real estate will change, because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.
>>>
>>> 11. Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020.
>>> Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.
>>>
>>> 12. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.
>>>
>>> 13. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that simply cannot continue… technology will take care of that strategy.
>>>
>>> 14. With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.
>>>
>>> 15. Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes
>>> your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free.
>>>
>>> 16. 3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.
>>>
>>> 17. Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.
>>>
>>> 18. At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.
>>>
>>> 19. In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.
>>>
>>> 20. Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, first ask yourself: "In the future, do I think we will have that?" And, if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?
>>>
>>> 20A. If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. Any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.
>>>
>>> 20B. Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a short time.
>>>
>>> 21. Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.
>>>
>>> 22. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows.
>>> Imagine if we don't need that space anymore.
>>>
>>> 23. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still
>>> reject the idea of eating insects).
>>>
>>>
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[skegpro]

.........

 

[2012ProRMK]

Thanks for all the insight! Yes i have considered power engineering, hear the job market is iffy and not huge into the shift work.

In terms of those trades, will a guy be freezing his arse off the majority of the time in the winter, or can ya expect mostly indoors/shop work in an industrial setting? Which would be the best in terms of working conditions?

Thanks

 

[Uturn]

Power Engineering market is flooded. Schools anticipated a growing market that just didn't materialize. I've been in the field for 30 yrs and love my job. Glad I got into it when I did.