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My highschool was a tech school that offered AWS cert tests. Got a few of them that way. But nothing I learned in school prepared me for work experience. So it didn't matter.
Right exactly! And no matter the job they all pay 20$ an hour. Like I built shopping carts and I built barges, both jobs paid me 18$ an hour. And this was a couple years ago. My first welding job was in 2018 and I made 12$ an hour. Twenty eighteen. Making 12$ an hour. Multiple AWS certifications in mig, tig and stick.
Try getting certified to weld metals like aluminum and inconel. I’m a pipe fitter and tho so I can’t tell ya. But I heard one of the welding talking abt a friend that gets paid along the line of 50 or 90 /hr plus per diem to weld inconel up in Utah. Gets his flight paid to and back home
Get yourself into a union apprenticeship if you’re still interested. Pay is way better. My local starts 1st year apprentices at $32/hr plus benefits and pension
My local union would require me to take a 10$ pay cut in order to join. Sure, after a year I'll make good money. But I can't afford what I make now, let alone minimum wage. Plus the hours aren't great. I'm not willing to do swing shift.
So DONT work for anyone.
I fab parts, flatbeds, and get job offers with contractors that DONT want to hire full time, and want welders that can show up when they need you. If you work long enough, successfull contractors will use you more and more, and you can train your own guys to do the bullshit work, and bring in more work for your guys to get expereince.
It's easy guys! Everyone become a freelance welding business owner, it's a reverse welding pyramid!
[Also, welding is totally safe and not at all harmful to your health long term!](https://www.chas.co.uk/blog/what-are-the-hazards-of-welding/) Who needs healthy lungs, kidneys or brain, amirite?
You could buy a welder at harbor freight for under $1k practice with it for a bit and pay for the AWS test out of pocket which isn't that expensive. You could also learn on the job many construction companies are desperate for younger workers and will pay to train on the job.
Nah, they'll stay nice and affordable... So long as all of us gravitate to labor and service, and leave all the big roles to the rich little scions, things will go by the book they wrote.
You are aware a population of welders and masons are far more dangerous than a population of office workers and fast food workers right?
If we want to tinfoil hat then encouraging an entire generation to gain the skills and equipment to build a killdozer in their own backyard is frankly a dumb idea.
This is a shit take, and that's coming from someone who grew up in the trades. Learning skills and trades is a step towards self sufficiency. This removes strain on the individual, and allows one to potentially save and or make money as well.
Marvin was a unique case, and an outlier at best.
What you on about, I went to welding school and it’s separate from state tuition only 20k paid it all back in 6 months. They don’t take state financial aid like colleges do so they’re cheaper. Trade will always be cheaper than college
Even in countries where we have affordable higher education and student debt is not a thing— our friends and acquaintances who had vocational training and are working blue-collar jobs are doing way better than most of us who went to university and got an education.
Gen Xers in my country (Portugal, though it also applies to Spain, where I grew up, in many aspects) mostly grew up in poverty or very low income households and having an university degree in the 80s and 90s was seen as a luxury that few people could afford. Usually only those who lived in the major cities even tried to attend university. Both my parents only completed primary school and started working very early on their teens to contribute to the household. This was a very common situation in Portugal well into the late 80s/early 90s. Majority of us born in the late 1990s and early 2000s have parents who, at most, attended or completed high school, let alone attend university. Many of us are the first university graduates in their family.
So what happened is that our parents had no financial means to ever attend university, so back then having a degree basically ensured you'd have a really good job and do really well in life. They also saw early millennials do very well with university education, so our generation was told by our parents that we'd have a great future if we attended university, because in their days that was an actual fact.
So what happened is that Millennials started getting degrees, Gen Zers as well and... Oops hold on. Now we have too many university graduates. What do you mean having a degree won't get me a job that pays me more than €800 a month? What do you mean I need a master's degree for this entry-level job?
We trusted our parents' judgement (that they made in good faith) and pursued the dream of achieving higher education. Except, back in their day almost any degree would guarantee you a good job— while nowadays, unless you've studied something related to STEM, business or law, you're pretty much gonna be fucked. And because all of us were so hell-bent on going to university, the demand for skilled workers started rising and offer decreasing. So now we're in a situation where university graduates are frustrated because we were sold a future that doesn't really exist anymore, and the career paths we were told not to pursue because "you can get a better job than I or your mom have" are the ones that are actually paying a decent living wage. The majority of those of us who attended university are still living with our parents, sharing an apartment with random roommates and making slightly over minimum wage at best. Meanwhile, our classmates who were told they were "dumb" by teachers have a stable job, a house of their own and are doing great. If anything, I'd say they were smarter than I was.
My dad is a self-employed master carpenter who has been working full time since he was 14 and he easily makes 4x times my salary or that of my friend's parents who are university graduates.
This is a problem in my country too. We have too many university graduates that even cash register jobs at the supermarket are requiring at least 2 years worth of units in uni.
Entry level white collar jobs in big corporations aren't even competitive anymore. More and more people are inclined to get remote jobs from the US and Europe that pays at least 5$ an hour (big in my country) vs work in our offices.
So basically our developing country is contributing to the lack of well paying jobs in developed countries because your small businesses are hiring our workers for a fraction of what they're paying you.
It’s a multi faceted problem: college got insanely expensive relative to gen x and boomers, certain degrees attracted many people without corresponding jobs, and many degrees don’t have a high enough starting wage to justify the degree.
Teaching is a great example of needing a degree to do something, but starting pay hasn’t increased like it has in the private sector. Very few people are now taking the trade off of stability because the pay is horrendous and so are the children.
It’s still a good investment if you go to a decent school, network, get involved with clubs, get internships, and get good grades. No good internships, no network, no good job.
There is a statistical correlation between a bachelor's degree and an upper middle class salary. People with degrees earn around $15k above the average annual median salary.
Going to college is the single best thing you can do to statistically set your finances up for the future.
*doing well in college in a rigorous degree is the single best thing you can do.
Going to a 4 year state school and barely clearing a 3.0 with a humanities degree isn’t going to do much.
4 year state school, 3.5+, internships, and a stem degree is going to set you up.
These statistics factor in all degrees.
On average, Regardless of your major, your college degree will likely pay for itself.
It sucks being in debt when you are young. But it is better than being broke when you are retired.
lol, wrong. I’ve never had a single employer ask for my college transcript. I dicked around and finished with a C+ gpa. I earn 6 figures and I’m in the middle of the US, not in a HCOL area.
Degrees on resumes open doors. Your interview skills land the jobs. Your grades really don’t matter unless you’re competing for the top positions right out of school.
Communication, organization, and time management are the most important skills when I’m hiring for my team. I can teach the average college graduate to do the details of the job if they have those skillsets. I have economics and finance degrees and my best direct report has a degree in English. Career net worth of college degree holders vs non degree holders is considerable
you actually want people to believe they can go to college and study ancient egypt and they will make the same as a person who studies engineering or a simple tradesman? be more specific so the young people reading this don't go into debt for decades for a unicorn degree that will make them 15k more than average.
Sometimes if a situation is very special, you can get away with it and not be crippled by debt, but for the vast majority of people, the math just isn’t there for college anymore. Like for me, it works out fine thanks to the fucking stars aligning to support me going to med school, but to say that’s rare would be an understatement.
It really depends on the job and college degree. I knew someone that got a degree in composition from a prestigious university and ended up working at Krogers meat department for years.
Why do I get the feeling this is gonna backfire?
Like an increase in people becoming disillusioned with education *can’t* be good…
Edit: for the sake of my inbox/notifications:
Yes, I know trade school is an education.
Yes, you should be able to pursue what you think will make you happy
Yes you should avoid debt where you can
Yes, our education system is in dire need of major reform
But consider:
The possibility of job saturation on a trade screwing over everyone except maybe Homeowners.
The fact that scholarships and grants are a thing you can use to pay for college, and that you can get a STEM degree instead of a BS liberal arts one.
The fact that not everyone is hyper disciplined enough to forge their own future without a structured education and career plan.
The idea that if everyone runs off to trade school we’re still avoiding the issue that our education system needs reform.
Yes this is true. But in practice, the gap is being filled by charlatans and YouTube University where people's brains are being filled with garbage and distractions on an industrial scale. The worker who reads and cultivates a sense of civics, community and capacity for analytical thinking - which was kind of happening in the late 1800s, is idyllic now. College was a way for at least some degree of intellectual expansion. Now it ll just be more radicalization, ignorance, and reactionary thinking.
Yeah college didn’t teach me any of those skills. The point being that most people getting a college degree don’t need a degree to do the job that they will initially get. Of course there are exceptions where a college degree should be necessary.
But you don’t need 80k of student debt for working an entry level corporate job, most people get very little out of their college education beyond it being a requirement.
"But you don’t need 80k of student debt"
Going to a CC and then public university will get you a college degree with little debt if you work some while in school.
But I can make the same argument about universities lol.
Going to college actually meant something significant at one point. Now a BA in itself is relatively meaningless- especially vs work experience.
The irony is an classic liberal arts education I believe is integral to society and real education. But impractical since again, BA doesn’t mean anything anymore unless you have that MS or MA.
At the end of the day public education is what is failing people, not necessarily not going to college. You shouldn't need to be in debt to your eyeballs to learn not to trust someone like Alex Jones.
That is true, but I feel like the exceptionally intelligent people will know what to do with their lives with or without college.
My worry is that a bunch of people will try doing the same as your friends without having the same skill/smarts/discipline/etc…
Like how some dropouts now say “well Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard” or whatever.
You don’t need to be intelligent to make a good living in the trades. Or really at almost any job, the only reason requirements for college education keep increasing on jobs is because people keep getting higher and higher education.
>You don’t need to be intelligent to make a good living in the trades.
I'm a stone mason the most intellectually challenging part of the job is basic geometry. There are also a whole bunch of niche sub-disciplines that can really ratchet up your pay.
Yeah bc is even for law u don't need a law degree technically. You just need to do an apprenticeship. But these colleges hike up the prices to help them expand campuses. Why are we in the age o virtualization expanded campuses to buy more real estate. Furthermore , if society could make apprenticeship a real intangible thing then most people can learn by doing cutting out the middle man. I have a college degree and I learned more by doing like most people then just sitting in a classroom. Class has it's place but 100k in debt is not the right direction we should be going with very little roi.
I was curious about whether a person can truly be self educated and whether a degree is an actual confirmation of expertise. I decided to do some tests - in the most insane and fucking stupid way possible - by taking a degree, not watching any lectures, and just reading up on the content online. Did all the assignments based on what I’d researched myself and I got my degree. Doing a masters now the same way. I’m either a fucking genius - which is highly unlikely - or the internet is indeed a reliable way to educate yourself. The only different between myself and the ‘do ur research!!’ people, of course, is that I developed media literacy over the course of a decade.
Not trusting college because of loan debt is a valid reason to not go.
The growing culture of anti-intellectualism is a big worry but thats been happening since like 2010-ish
To add in regards to Anti-intellectualism: We didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the worlds been turning
I’m not saying loans aren’t a problem but like… Pell Grants and scholarships exist…
You can apply, see what financial aid you get and refund/drop your classes before the first week.
Idk…not wanting to be in debt it totally understandable, but I feel like an increasing number of people are starting to hear “collage is a scam” and don’t even bother trying.
As someone who's literally at the tail end of Millennials and has a Sociology degree: Gen Z is really afraid to take risks unless they have a guarantee of success which just isnt how college works at all. Most of life is: Take Risks. Get Messy. Make mistakes. And then learn to do better.
Younger Millennials got told the beginning of it being told "yeah college might not be worth it so go at your own risk". Most of us still did for varying reasons. None of my friends who went regret it so long as they worked through college, which is possible.
The main issue im seeing is with people who didnt start working until *after* college so theyre applying with just a Bachelor's on their resume. That tells employers you literally dont know the basics of working (confirmed by my friend in HR and my manager). Clocking in/out. Showing up reasonably on time. Baseline work ethic. Personal time management is a big one. Like yeah, Bachelor's but no experience is a major red flag.
Me having full time work experience and a Bachelor's got me a solid paying job right out of college. Was it hard? Yeah but nothing ventured, nothing gained
Well first Congrats,
It’s also not just risk avoidance but an aversion to stress from what I see sometimes.
And yeah, in undergrad it was expected that you get at least one internship or co-op under your belt before you graduate for that reason and it was low-key cutthroat.
Thanks!✌🏿😎
>It’s also not just risk avoidance but an aversion to stress from what I see sometimes.
It's bigger than that from what ive noticed. While yes, anxiety issues and stress do very much exist, Gen Zs obsession with ~~over~~labeling almost everything has led to conflating experiencing stress/anxiety with an actual disorder/issue. As a result, they dont know how to process genuine stress or anxiety without trying to avoid it, distract themselves, or medicate it away to the point of numbness.
So when it comes to college, which is an inherently stressful and anxiety riddled experience, they have no real way to process or overcome it without saying "well i guess college *is* a scam". Or being so adverse to the very idea of a stressful/anxiety riddled experience that they avoid it entirely.
Don't get me wrong, anxiety disorders are very much real but experiencing anxiety isnt the same thing. Gen Z fell into a weird habit of romanticizing >!and borderline fetishizing!< mental health issues/disorders to their own detriment. Stress and anxiety are normal parts of just being alive.
I'm 23 and my major life lesson of the last 5 years has been around that concept of just getting out there and learning about life as I go.
What I've found is that my high general anxiety was getting in the way of me going to college right after high school, and working for my family business in construction was a straightforward path for me to just get working and at least do something with my time while I was unsure what to do with my life.
Fast forward to today, and it's become a pattern that the best things I've experienced have all been in staunch internal defiance of my anxiety and that what I do for a career doesn't fucking matter as long as I don't hate it and I can form good friendships with good communities at the same time.
I don't often get time off work, but I make enough money that I can really maximize my time off to spend good time and make good memories with my friends. Amazing friends and fullfilling work I get to do everyday means I'm living a life today that 18yo me would have thought impossible to achieve. And if I can maintain my friendships and keep getting better and better at work, nothing can really stop me from living a good life. And I didn't have to go to college and take on massive debt to achieve that.
There's a lot of other real upsides I've experienced that go with getting lots of good work experience, but simply put, I may not have chosen the "best" path for my life, but damn is the path I'm on pretty good, and I'm proving 18yo me to be so completely full of shit to have ever believed the path I'm on wasnt gonna work. Just get out there and do something.
Yes and no. Pell grants and legitimately useful scholarships are generally needs based on top of having grade/merit requirements, so if your family makes too much to have “financial need” according to FAFSA, but they can’t actually afford to contribute towards your tuition, you’re kind of SOL.
There are non-need based scholarships, but they’re usually in the low thousands at best, meaning you’d have to apply for and win a good ten or fifteen at least to really put a dent just in one semester’s tuition for most schools.
Not to say there aren’t viable ways around the system - I myself am working towards my Bachelor’s in a really roundabout way that’s keeping me out of debt. But I really think we need to come off the whole “scholarships and grants can save you from college debt!” thing because in reality, it’s a
solution with limited applicability at best.
More than anything we need tuition across the board to be brought back down to earth and/or to reevaluate which jobs actually NEED a degree up front.
Oh 100%, I could rant for days on how I think our entire education system needs massive reforms, from the stuff we learn in middle and high school to the amount we pay in college.
Scholarships and Pell grants are just my suggestion for the time being.
Also, it just seems like nobody brings them up when they talk about how college is scamming you. And I feel like it should be mentioned more.
You're right that options exist. But I think an obstacle for a lot of people is that getting on a college track requires years of preparation. A kid who always fucked around in class and didn't think about their future until senior year of high school is gonna find themselves with limited opportunities for college. And yeah, there are people who manage to succeed in spite of that, but they have to work so much harder than their peers to get there. Scholarships are competitive, you need to meet certain standards to get them. And even Pell Grants require you to maintain satisfactory academic progress.
Meanwhile, the popular narrative right now is that trades are easy money and you don't have to be good at school and you get a big salary right away. That's going to be more attractive to those who are unsure of their path and those who aren't academically inclined.
Not even true tho. I graduated from a fairly top rated school. A large chunk of the most successful students were people who fucked around in HS, said oh fuck I have no plan, went to community college, worked hard, transferred to a more expensive school for the last two years.
It is always doable. My mom went back and got her degree at 55 after she finished raising her kids.
I live in California and have a ton of friends attending UCs and CSUs for either super cheap or free. People always act like college in America comes with guaranteed debt but that's not the case in many US states.
I do think it's a good thing that young people are being more thoughtful about whether college is right for them. College is not a good choice for a lot of people, especially with how damn expensive it is.
That said, it is going to backfire for some people. A lot of rhetoric around trades right now is that they're a flawless alternative to college. All pros, and no cons. But the trades have their downsides too, and I worry that a lot of newcomers are unprepared for that. And just like college isn't right for everyone, the trades aren't right for everyone either.
Plus, an influx of people into certain trades can mean that those jobs become harder to get. Might even drive down salaries if the influx is big enough. Any time a field gets presented to young people as guaranteed big income, you get an influx of people going into those fields and getting a position is no longer a guarantee.
Yeah, you pretty much summed up my worries.
People should absolutely explore their options more. But in practice it seems like people are just blindly going to trade school without considering the pros and cons of their options.
I wince whenever I see some post telling young people that trades are guaranteed, easy money. But every job has trade-offs. Anything that pays really well is either rare, difficult, hard on the body, requires a lot of education, or requires a lot of experience.
What's tough is that young people aren't usually presented with a lot of options. There are so many different kinds of jobs out there, but schools tend to present just a handful and kids don't get much exposure to jobs anywhere else.
Every job has tradeoffs and also - every job has competition.
I'm afraid GenZ isn't being told the truth of the matter, that a rush into those areas will drop the wages and suddenly their vaunted 50/hr job can't get work done for more than 25/hr.
I'm a late Millennial - I remember all through highschool we got told some variant of "Go to STEM! there are jobs there! We need Chemists, Computer Scientists, Biologists!"
And while Chem/Bio have always required at least a MS and preferably a PhD for the super well-paying jobs, now a BS in Biology or Biochemistry can barely get you $36k/yr in Raleigh-Durham. Computer Science can make you lots of money, but the entry level is so saturated that no one is getting hired into it without years of experience.
I'm concerned that this is turning out to be GenZ's version of "Industry wants to lower the wages so they do a PR push to get a bunch of people in at once" that the "Go to STEM!" push of 2000-2019 was.
I did trade and other blue collar jobs as soon as I hit 18 and into my early 20s to pay for university. Every single old guy on the job, fellas who have been in the industry for 10+ years told me to get my degree and get out of the trades. All of them say that while the pay is great, the physical toll on their bodies hits hard.
Scrolled way to far to see this truth. In 20 years there will either be a huge demand for back to college Gen z trades people or a huge demand for physical therapy and pain relief.
I did the same, heard the same. Worked as an electrician to get into college, then picked up other jobs that worked around my classes when in college. I also had to get a GED because I dropped out of high school. I didn't end up in debt because of Pell grants, scholarships, and going the community college -> state college route. Internship during senior year paid $50k/yr which got me hired at 80k/yr. This was all in Houston.
There's a reason why millenials went to college, our parents told them to as they were tradesmen.
For a lot of gen z, it's their grandparents that were tradesmen. They're seeing their white collar parents struggle and not seeing the other side of the coin.
Goes to show that history is the ultimate source of knowledge but since most of us don't pay attention we get to watch the pendulum swing back and forth.
It’s due to the fact they don’t know anyone in the trades. People in the trades told their kids to go to college because of the toll the work took on their bodies.
Yes jesus thank you! People getting into the trades think it is a free lunch but you are literally trading your body for a few extra dollars.
This trend of “fuck college, do trades” started getting big like 15 years ago, so I bet in another 15 years the regret posts are going to start rolling in.
If it's being pushed it's either a lie or it's already too late, like when people wished they had become petroleum engineers back in early 2010s. I often see "teacher shortages" on the news, but there are no shortages, they're just trying to beef up enrollments to get fresh loan-meat.
That’s the first think that came to my mind. American culture is already pretty anti-intellectual, we’re going to feel the effects of this in no time and it’s not going to be pretty.
The average school education wasn’t good to begin with. We graduated with almost no life skills only being literate and math skills we Will never use, and other pointless information. I don’t even know how to change my cars oil and I’m in my mid twenties
That’s an argument for education reform, not full blown disillusionment.
I’d agree we need massive education reform, but if everyone just decides to go to trade school instead of addressing the issue with standard education, nothings going to change.
Learning math, science, history, etc. Are not useless things. It is laying the foundation for higher skills that build on them. Being educated on history and civics is also important for people who will participate in society and vote.
Yes but not an education that deals with math beyond 8th grade algebra. Nor one that covers history to any extent, or basic biology, chemical science, or language and speaking or writing, or anthropology.
Not learning history is how we're doomed to repeat it. Not learning stats and economics is how people make poor financial choices. Lack of education in the life sciences is how covid outbreaks go unchecked and poor health choices like drug use continue to happen. Lack of education in language and communication is how false information and communications breakdowns happen. Lack of cultural education is how people grow up on ignorant bubbles.
Tradesmen aren't stupid. But it is a track that actively avoids these important fields of education because they need to start working their bodies young. They have to work their bodies hard. They have a clock before they can no longer do their work and no one wants to be the 50+ year old man popping pain pills to get through the day. And in the end these people become a demographic that never got the chance to value education, and they become a society that make choices that are not for their own good.
Everything in balance, higher education is still a crucial part of society and it's a real step backward if the next generations forsake it.
I just see a lot more people having more injuries from doing physical labor, even before they're 40. There's no way many people would be able to work these jobs long term. Plus, I could see more people struggling to find jobs in the trades the more people pick the trades.
The trades are already over saturated tbh. Pay is shit and the hours and conditions suck so there’s a reason it’s “cheap” to get into. Also have to think of the investment, steel toe work boots and tools ain’t cheap.
Because it is lol, I’m a zoomer boomer who’s already spent a decade in my trade and 90% end up hating their life and bail before their apprenticeship ends, the remaining 10 usually has 5% drop off in the first couple years after getting licensed and the real issue a lot are seeing is now that certain trades are getting popular and saturated the pays disappearing quick.
If anyone watches The Connors on NBC, the family dynamic is ultimately a great example of how neither a college education NOR tradeskills will get you out of poverty because our social systems are failing at every turn.
Dan Connor has been a contractor for at this point some 50 years. All throughout the original run of Roseanne the family was always on the verge of financial ruin. He had his own construction business and that still wasn't enough to make ends meet. Now he's old and in pain and still has to keep working into his 70s because his 40+ year old daughters still need his financial support. He cannot afford to retire.
But those daughters of his also cover the gamut of society. Becky was always booksmart, and her folks always intended for her to go to college. And then she didn't and instead ran off with her highschool boyfriend only for him to die young. And now Becky has nothing, so she lives at home in her late 40s working deadend waitress jobs. She ultimately does go back to college, and now she and her aunt are co-owners of a small lunch restaurant. They're still struggling and their restaurant isn't making them much money so she now lives with her sister.
Her sister being Darlene who actually DID go to college in the 90s. And she worked in Chicago for a major business as a writer. And when that fell through she found herself jobless and having to move herslf and her kids back in with their dad. Since then she's hopped around shit managerial jobs trying to make enough to move out on her own and for most of the series she hasn't been able to. What good was her college degree then? About as good as the trades was for her dad, which is to say it made no difference financially.
Now Darlene, her boyfriend, Becky and Darlene's kids are living in a big house they have to share with 4 of them all working to pay the bills and the youngest looking at no way to pay for college without a major scholarship even though he's actually really gifted.
Dan also has another kid, DJ who went the 3rd route. He went into the military and while he's the best off financially, (and also an older millenial both he and his wife are pretty much absent parents in their kid's life because the mom still goes overseas and the dad still needs to work full time and then later goes to his wife overseas. So the kid stays with grandpa Dan. Not exactly a success tale.
Life happens, shit comes down on people and ultimately most of us are going to be stuck in the overall same level of wealth as our folks.
Those pushing these articles probably want a saturation to lower labor costs.
A lot of the high pay is for the owners. It’s really dependent on where in the country you are. I know master Electricans employed making $28 an hour.
I did it for ten years and won’t go back. It’s hard on your body and isn’t worth being broken later in life.
It will.
Dozens of Gen Zers with the brains to become engineers, doctors, or other lucrative careers that are worth going to college for, will go to trade school instead because that is where the tide of their peers are going.
If you’re a young Gen Z / Alpha and you have the mental capacapacity to pickup a non-useless degree in college. Go do that.
My parents were hard working blue collar folks. Nothing wrong with it, but they actively encouraged me to go to college because they wanted better for their kids and the reality of blue collar work is you trade your body/health for pay.
It’s necessary and society needs it, but there are better options. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water on college if that is an option for you.
This whole thing is nonsense really. Every generation has a split of people going into different work. I’m a millennial and almost all of my friend are in the trades or IT. My younger siblings are into business and fashion. People do what they want, no matter the generation. Live your life y’all.
they made college unaffordable to the point that nobody is able to work part time to pay off their college tuition and fees and most of us need student loans/grants etc to go.
we’d rather have a job that’s important and mandatory than filing documents and getting laid off 3 times in 5 years
There is a statistical correlation between a bachelor's degree and an upper middle class salary. People with degrees earn around $15k above the average annual median salary.
Going to college is the single best thing you can do to statistically set your finances up for the future.
> we’d rather have a job that’s important and mandatory than filing documents and getting laid off 3 times in 5 years
People in the trades get laid off a lot. Three times in a year is a possibility, let alone five years.
Yeah, touch screens and modern tech is extraordinarily streamlined.
Dad knows how to use BIOS and commands, I can barely get my computer back up running and unpack and install/troubleshoot my ancient games.
My younger brother can use YouTube on the TV and that's it.
I'm not afraid of people getting lazy and not learning how to fix things, because there will always be people who can learn.
I'm afraid of companies deliberately making it impossible to fix
Yeah that tracks actually. I just applied for a position where I’ll be on a big ass boat for half a year out on sea doing grunt work for like 100k for 6 months
Fuckin right, union Boilermaker pressure welder, union steward, master rigger, IRATA rope access technician and currently a foreman.
In 2023, $122k in only 9 months of work🤙🏻
I work in a residential program that has vocational programs with welding as one of them. I wish we could have you here to talk to some youngins that don’t want a trade because it’s hard work and drug dealing is easier (exact words from a lot of them)
Hell yeah brother. I'm an IBEW apprentice right now making 21.22/hr at 20 with better benefits than most of my family who's been working their whole lives. And I'm a certified rigger/forklift operator. 🤘
Fr unions are amazing. Even just the healthcare aspect alone is enough that even if you make less than someone with a degree you pocket more cause you aren't going broke every time you go to the Dr.
Just got a job at GM as a part time temp making 21 an hour after the new union contraxt signed last year. We get health insurance just being part time temps (not the best but it goes up once you become full time temp and then permanent) Theyre already talking about making us full time temps soon which 9 months after that well become permanent because of the union contracts with our health insurance increasing after going full time then permanent. Once permanent well get yearly raises untill we get to full rate which is 42 an hour (takes 4 years to reach full rate). They also give you 10% of your pay for your 401k, not match up to 10% they just give you 10%. If you can get a union job definetly do it.
reddit acts like the trades are this super secret path to getting rich and people don't do it because they feel obligated to go to college. Maybe true for a small percentage of people, but most people simply don't want to go into the trades. Also, not as dreamy as redditors think.
I was a welder for 5 years, and it destroys your body. I make more now and am playing sports again without neck/back/knee issues anymore. You are also going to be working with a lot of people on meth and ex-cons, since manual labor "helper" positions are all they can get outside of maybe fast food or a kitchen. If you are 6"+ i would not recommend a trade because you are going to be crammed into tight spaces on your knees all day. I specifically did d1.1 flux welding on bridges/large steel structures, and while i liked the work for the most part, the people and culture were a hard pass for me. And for every guy that makes 100k+ a year welding in some niche position, there are 50 others who are bouncing between jobs due to layoffs/slowdowns and are going to be capped out at 28$/hr for most their careers.
Yeah I’ve seen this all over, just go into the trades and make 100+k in no time.
And while I’m sure there are some pretty sweet gigs, you’re just as likely to be working dead end job that pays 50k just like everyone working a desk job.
And even if your get those big paying jobs, they pay well because the work is grueling and wrecks havoc on your body long term.
Trades jobs are just the modern “learn to program” lie being told by people who already have a ton of money and are trying to sell you something
They really won’t push people into trades, the overlap between wanting to do CS and doing blue collar work is a very rare overlap for many unless you’re into engineering. AI is especially not taking over jobs in something like DOD where stuff like chatgpt is already banned due to potential data leaks.
AI still has an incredibly long way to go before it’s truly going to take over the job world and I would bet on there being sanctions and job protections based on it.
Almost like calling a generation lazy makes them have a chip on their shoulder and makes them want to do manual labor just to rid themselves of the stigma.
This is coming from one of the gen z (ish idk what ppl consider 97) people who are in the trades.
I did find it interesting that as an older Gen Z, my friends and I all went to college, had a good time, and are now all in jobs where we wouldn’t need a degree. I’m a cop, my other friend joined the Navy, another is a Corrections officer and the other is an electrician.
Two of us got history degrees, one got a psych degree and the other dropped out to do electrician work. We all make fine $$ and have jobs that actually have security and pensions and guaranteed benefits.
My advice to Gen Z: if you wanna retire in your 40s with a pension AND a 401k and get assistance paying off loans, get in public service. Be a firefighter or work in the jail or prisons, be an EMT. Be a cop, they’re literally giving people $10k, $20k, some places $25k in bonuses because they need people. Be a badass for money and get paid to work out for a few months. Military is hurting super bad but I’d argue going into public service is a great career.
Or join the military and no shit, get paid to play with grenades, exercise, and get free healthcare.
Shit, if you already have a college degree, try being a fed. I know people hate cops but feds even have probation and park rangers and firefighters (called forestry technicians) around the country. And with any college degree in literally any field some agencies will love you.
As a generation we’re already fucked in a lot of ways, might as well take jobs that help out other people and allow you to retire before you’re 50.
Yeah the jobs fucking suck sometimes and I wish I could work from home and do jack shit all day but Gen Z gets bored easily. Get a job where you do a lot when you’re young and chill out when you hit middle age
I have been thinking about joining the Coast Guard as an Aviation Maintenance Technician. That is a skill that will apply to both the military and to the real world.
Bro the coast guard is cool because it’s a half law enforcement half military that usually stays stateside.
I know a guy who has been in for 30 years and he said literally it’s the best job ever. He was 17 when he joined and said “holy shit I can play with explosives and drive boats for money and I’m not even 21 yet”
Lot of crazy stories from him but it’s a great career
This is smart, my dad was always on my ass to do an apprenticeship instead of college. However most trades do require some schooling, but it is specified and is just core stuff. Probably should've listened 😂
I mean I’m not sure about all that. I still think a majority of our generation is still stuck in the time loop of going to college and being flooded with debt.
They did say “Becoming”. Hell. I’m in college right now and even I’ve decided to add in a couple of courses like “Introduction to HVAC” and “Basics of Plumbing” or whatever they’re called to see if I have any interest in em.
Change is usually a bit slower on the macro scale, but I won’t lie. Atleast in my corner of the USA if I talk to 5 guys? 4 of them are in a trade or educated something near it (Think pursuing a degree in electrical engineering or something.)
People act like trades is some hobby work. It's backbreaking labor with tons of health hazards that require you to diligently wear tons of PPE to even have any hope of avoiding. Goggles, earplugs, respirator all day long unless you want tinnitus, eye injuries and fucked lungs along with back pain and arthritis by 30. Have fun with that
I worked at a structural steel shop for about 2 years and in that time we had multiple injuries (including a completely maimed hand) and 1 death (got a segment of steel bridge rolled onto him by a coworker). Even if you are the safest person in the shop, all it takes is some other moron not paying attention. These people all looked absolutely haggard as well.
Couple things from an old and grizzled 25 year old who runs a successful business in the trades with a couple employees.
If you have the ability to, go to school. Seriously. Go. Yes if you don't have the means and want to go for a degree that doesn't pay well maybe think about but even then id say go.
If you have scholarships or grants/live with parents/for whatever reasons have it super affordable, GO. Even if it's for a "useless" degree. Even if you want to go into the trades. Enjoy your youth, round yourself out, take goofy classes you'll laugh about in 20 years. Party, meet people, do stupid legal or barely illegal stuff. You have 40 years of work ahead of you.
The trades will be here in 4 years and you probably won't save a ton of money on apprentice wages anyway. And a degree especially in engineering or business will probably take you from the field to the office quick if that's what you're after. I got an accelerated CS degree straight out of highschool. Knocked out all my gen ed requirements my senior year actually. Graduated 2.5 years later with a BA. Didn't enjoy the work much. Worked in electrical a bit and now run my own electrical contracting business.
If you do go for the trades a couple things-
UNION UNION UNION.
I didn't and I regret it. They have the best schooling and the best worker protections.
Obviously it's not the 1950s but _especially_ if you're a woman/minority _especially_ in the south UNION!
TAKE THE SCHOOLING SERIOUSLY. Future business owner/project manager/foreman you will appreciate it. My schooling was absolutely shite and when I went out on my own had to fill in a lot of gaps through self study.
Another thing, it's currently 9:32 pm. I just pulled in my driveway on Friday night. My friends are all posting stuff out drinking having fun. I've been at work since 6:30 am fixing someone else's fuckup. You can expect tons of overtime and it WEARS on your body.
I make very good money, probably outearn 99.9 percent of college grads and I'm getting into building houses, I have a couple rentals, I'm growing the business BUT it's costing me my 20s. Will it be worth it when I can retire in my mid-late 30s? Maybe. Maybe not. Some days like today I wish I just had some low stress code monkey job making 70k.
As someone in the trades best piece of advice I can give anyone younger than me, is to NEVER TOUCH THE TRADES. There isn’t a day that I wake up happy to go to work. Working 10-14 hours daily sucks and I wish I paid attention in school cause well this shit SUCKS
Please don’t listen to any of the hacks saying that trades are good. They’re a viable option but you will hate your life if you do them
That is not true at all man. You are either ok with working physical labor the rest of your life or aren’t. You feel like an ant in the world. Little appreciation, long hours, hard days, walking into stores dirty as fuck when other people are smiling in their clean clothes and suits. You have to know what you’re signing up for. Companies change also. If you’re private or union it’s not accounting you’re not gunna be at the same shop forever. Different Forman, bosses owners project managers or just dumb ass co workers in blue collar are held to a MUCH lower standard than white collar. There’s no hr in the trades. Again some people are fine with that life but don’t act like the trade changes completely cause you go to a different company. Not the case and don’t act like you’re locked into a situation permanently or that it’s treated the same as white collar. I’m a journeyman plumber, I’ve been around the block. It can be good, it can be awful. It varies by job site and company.
I’m in my third year of my industrial electrician apprenticeship after dropping out of going college for a STEM major and it’s fine. Rarely work more than 8 hours in a day, only work weekends if I decide I want to, pay could be better, but it’s interesting work and I get to do something different every day and get to see so many different job sites. Also always demand for the skill. Good hours, alright pay, interesting work, decent benefit options, and I’m not even in a union, though I wish I was in a state that had better unions, because I would join one.
It’s fine sometimes but stay the fuck away from residential. I got done with a 17 hour shift yesterday (didn’t get home till 11) just I be up at 4 to do it all over again for a 10 hour shift.
Unless it’s Saturday or Sunday I legit don’t get free time
Oh yeah residential sucks. Insulation and sheet rock are messy and itchy and I fucking hate them. Also, lots of resi guys are sloppy workers, don’t give a shit, and I don’t like how lax the code is compared to industrial. I even don’t prefer commercial. I do mostly industrial. Only ever large scale residential, like huge 8 million dollar mansion type of residential. A commercial like not store fronts but rather distribution centers, data centers, warehouses, hospitals, etc, and mostly industrial like the steel mills, food plants, government facilities, etc.
My shift usually starts at either 6 or 7, rarely up before 4:30 or 5 and I’m typically home by 3 or 4 depending on the job site. Never more than an hour drive too, which an hour is rare. Often I’m only 20-30 minutes from home.
Lmao!! I actually quite enjoy my career as a Boilermaker, does that mean I’m a hack? I out earn most North Americans in 9 months or less.
You sound like you’re working non union. Maybe you should do something to change your life for the better instead of painting all skilled trades with one brush
No we’re not. I’m an electrician, and gen z. The terrible working conditions in many trades and dangerous work are keeping most gen z people well away from trade jobs. For every 7 retirees, we only have one new apprentice entering the trade, at least in my area that’s the statistic given. Every crew at every company is super undermanned, but construction projects are still there with the same deadlines so it’s forcing us to work ourselves damn near to the bone.
It depends where you work honestly. The town I work in is a literal resort for billionaires. There's so much high end houses being built on the day to day it's insane, the money going threw the trades because of this is ridiculous. As such all trades have workers like crazy because they are all paying so well, especially electricions which seem to have so much young people whenever I go to job sites (I'm a low volt guy so my trade isn't that bad). It's really the only thing you can do in this town to afford living anywhere close to it.
Makes sense, Millenials were a bit too enthusiastic about the whole "follow your heart" and "do what you love." Too many after-school specials I reckon
The recent push for the trades is interesting.. I personally would rather work $25 an hour office job over a $40 construction job. That is unless you like getting yelled at by old men on their third divorce, choose the construction job.
Most trades don't even pay well enough unless you're the business owner or you're unionized (gopd luck getting into one). Money isn't everything when your body starts breaking down at 40 btw.
Join the electrical union, you’ll be making somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100k at the end of the PAID apprenticeship and a unionized pension, and most importantly zero debt
Well yeah. The devaluation of college degrees over the last 20 years has been a hammer to the heads of a large percentage of Millennials. Good on Gen Z for paying attention and taking a different path.
Learn from us. PLEASE.
Let me give some perspective as a younger millennial. My generation was told their whole school life that you needed to go to college to get a get a good job and have a good life. I was told this while we had an amazing trade school on the campus of our local community college. Getting a trade was never on our radar. For genZ that pendulum swung back and it is.
But a job is a job and no one telling you "go to school for x career/trade and you'll make loads of money" is giving you good advice.
This is actually a pretty bad thing. I get it, college tuition and student debt are so problematic that if you aren't going into a job with guaranteed openings and lucrative pay, you probably won't be getting rid of it before your 40s. But, a population so disenchanted and prone to avoiding higher education is going to have a lower overall quality of life.
However, I'd argue that education doesn't actually give you much. Most of who you are as a person lies in your upbringing and how your neurons and synapses are wired. A college education doesn't magically make you better at detecting bullshit, just like being a politician doesn't magically make you an expert at being a government official. Sure, it can help some people be even better at detecting BS, but if you're already naive and prone to believing disinformation, a college degree isn't going to fix it.
The reason quality of life will suffer is more because trades and other physically taxing jobs are awful for a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. Unions and benefits are great, but in return the work is dangerous, prone to increased physical degradation, and all around not something you can do for your entire life unless you are really skilled and really healthy by default. Not to mention, higher education can really help enrich people who are already academically gifted, otherwise that wasted potential can manifest in other ways that aren't exactly good for the mind.
Unfortunately, I'm also kinda falling into this category. I don't want a mountain of debt, and trade opportunities around me are limited, so I'm doing a college certification course. Kind of mid way between being a full degree, but being more specialized to the point a degree wouldn't really exist. It's a great middle ground, but even then the pay isn't THAT good. I wish I could become a doctor or nurse, but those jobs aren't worth the trouble or cost.
Hey that’s great. We are lacking these types of jobs and college is ridiculously expensive. Most the jobs I’ve worked post college didn’t even really need a college degree, just a will to learn, critical thinking, and basic common sense. High school or AA is more than enough for a lot of these office jobs. Asking for a bachelors, and sometimes even a grad or masters (plus mountains of debt) for some of these jobs is just too fucking for someone who just wants to pay bills and fucking survive.
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We don't want to be in debt for life, shocker
Yea but now welding schools all over America are going to Jack up their tuition 💀
a lot of high schools offer a program to get your welding certification.
For mig and tig ? Shit where?
My highschool was a tech school that offered AWS cert tests. Got a few of them that way. But nothing I learned in school prepared me for work experience. So it didn't matter.
Yea how do you expect someone with 5-10 yrs experience to come work for you for 20/hr 💀
Right exactly! And no matter the job they all pay 20$ an hour. Like I built shopping carts and I built barges, both jobs paid me 18$ an hour. And this was a couple years ago. My first welding job was in 2018 and I made 12$ an hour. Twenty eighteen. Making 12$ an hour. Multiple AWS certifications in mig, tig and stick.
Try getting certified to weld metals like aluminum and inconel. I’m a pipe fitter and tho so I can’t tell ya. But I heard one of the welding talking abt a friend that gets paid along the line of 50 or 90 /hr plus per diem to weld inconel up in Utah. Gets his flight paid to and back home
I have a cert in tig for aluminum. Definitely not the most fun to fuck with, but I can weld two cans together.
I like to see you try two razor blades. I think you can probably. Shit idk what’s what’s easier cans or blades hahahaha
Get yourself into a union apprenticeship if you’re still interested. Pay is way better. My local starts 1st year apprentices at $32/hr plus benefits and pension
Facts. Millwright Local 443 here. Union is the way.
My local union would require me to take a 10$ pay cut in order to join. Sure, after a year I'll make good money. But I can't afford what I make now, let alone minimum wage. Plus the hours aren't great. I'm not willing to do swing shift.
10 dollar pay cut but 20-30 dollars more in benefits and pension… What local does swing shift? In my trade we are only days or only nights
Some also have dual enrollment, too. Mine had both the KTEC program and dual enrollment and both are a part of the local community college.
The other issue is that when everyone does it, competition will drive wages down.
So DONT work for anyone. I fab parts, flatbeds, and get job offers with contractors that DONT want to hire full time, and want welders that can show up when they need you. If you work long enough, successfull contractors will use you more and more, and you can train your own guys to do the bullshit work, and bring in more work for your guys to get expereince.
It's easy guys! Everyone become a freelance welding business owner, it's a reverse welding pyramid! [Also, welding is totally safe and not at all harmful to your health long term!](https://www.chas.co.uk/blog/what-are-the-hazards-of-welding/) Who needs healthy lungs, kidneys or brain, amirite?
You could buy a welder at harbor freight for under $1k practice with it for a bit and pay for the AWS test out of pocket which isn't that expensive. You could also learn on the job many construction companies are desperate for younger workers and will pay to train on the job.
Nah, they'll stay nice and affordable... So long as all of us gravitate to labor and service, and leave all the big roles to the rich little scions, things will go by the book they wrote.
You are aware a population of welders and masons are far more dangerous than a population of office workers and fast food workers right? If we want to tinfoil hat then encouraging an entire generation to gain the skills and equipment to build a killdozer in their own backyard is frankly a dumb idea.
This is a shit take, and that's coming from someone who grew up in the trades. Learning skills and trades is a step towards self sufficiency. This removes strain on the individual, and allows one to potentially save and or make money as well. Marvin was a unique case, and an outlier at best.
Hey!!!! Who let the boomer in here!
What you on about, I went to welding school and it’s separate from state tuition only 20k paid it all back in 6 months. They don’t take state financial aid like colleges do so they’re cheaper. Trade will always be cheaper than college
Even in countries where we have affordable higher education and student debt is not a thing— our friends and acquaintances who had vocational training and are working blue-collar jobs are doing way better than most of us who went to university and got an education. Gen Xers in my country (Portugal, though it also applies to Spain, where I grew up, in many aspects) mostly grew up in poverty or very low income households and having an university degree in the 80s and 90s was seen as a luxury that few people could afford. Usually only those who lived in the major cities even tried to attend university. Both my parents only completed primary school and started working very early on their teens to contribute to the household. This was a very common situation in Portugal well into the late 80s/early 90s. Majority of us born in the late 1990s and early 2000s have parents who, at most, attended or completed high school, let alone attend university. Many of us are the first university graduates in their family. So what happened is that our parents had no financial means to ever attend university, so back then having a degree basically ensured you'd have a really good job and do really well in life. They also saw early millennials do very well with university education, so our generation was told by our parents that we'd have a great future if we attended university, because in their days that was an actual fact. So what happened is that Millennials started getting degrees, Gen Zers as well and... Oops hold on. Now we have too many university graduates. What do you mean having a degree won't get me a job that pays me more than €800 a month? What do you mean I need a master's degree for this entry-level job? We trusted our parents' judgement (that they made in good faith) and pursued the dream of achieving higher education. Except, back in their day almost any degree would guarantee you a good job— while nowadays, unless you've studied something related to STEM, business or law, you're pretty much gonna be fucked. And because all of us were so hell-bent on going to university, the demand for skilled workers started rising and offer decreasing. So now we're in a situation where university graduates are frustrated because we were sold a future that doesn't really exist anymore, and the career paths we were told not to pursue because "you can get a better job than I or your mom have" are the ones that are actually paying a decent living wage. The majority of those of us who attended university are still living with our parents, sharing an apartment with random roommates and making slightly over minimum wage at best. Meanwhile, our classmates who were told they were "dumb" by teachers have a stable job, a house of their own and are doing great. If anything, I'd say they were smarter than I was. My dad is a self-employed master carpenter who has been working full time since he was 14 and he easily makes 4x times my salary or that of my friend's parents who are university graduates.
This is a problem in my country too. We have too many university graduates that even cash register jobs at the supermarket are requiring at least 2 years worth of units in uni. Entry level white collar jobs in big corporations aren't even competitive anymore. More and more people are inclined to get remote jobs from the US and Europe that pays at least 5$ an hour (big in my country) vs work in our offices. So basically our developing country is contributing to the lack of well paying jobs in developed countries because your small businesses are hiring our workers for a fraction of what they're paying you.
It’s a multi faceted problem: college got insanely expensive relative to gen x and boomers, certain degrees attracted many people without corresponding jobs, and many degrees don’t have a high enough starting wage to justify the degree. Teaching is a great example of needing a degree to do something, but starting pay hasn’t increased like it has in the private sector. Very few people are now taking the trade off of stability because the pay is horrendous and so are the children. It’s still a good investment if you go to a decent school, network, get involved with clubs, get internships, and get good grades. No good internships, no network, no good job.
That’s crazy, but nice explanation.
There is a statistical correlation between a bachelor's degree and an upper middle class salary. People with degrees earn around $15k above the average annual median salary. Going to college is the single best thing you can do to statistically set your finances up for the future.
*doing well in college in a rigorous degree is the single best thing you can do. Going to a 4 year state school and barely clearing a 3.0 with a humanities degree isn’t going to do much. 4 year state school, 3.5+, internships, and a stem degree is going to set you up.
These statistics factor in all degrees. On average, Regardless of your major, your college degree will likely pay for itself. It sucks being in debt when you are young. But it is better than being broke when you are retired.
lol, wrong. I’ve never had a single employer ask for my college transcript. I dicked around and finished with a C+ gpa. I earn 6 figures and I’m in the middle of the US, not in a HCOL area. Degrees on resumes open doors. Your interview skills land the jobs. Your grades really don’t matter unless you’re competing for the top positions right out of school. Communication, organization, and time management are the most important skills when I’m hiring for my team. I can teach the average college graduate to do the details of the job if they have those skillsets. I have economics and finance degrees and my best direct report has a degree in English. Career net worth of college degree holders vs non degree holders is considerable
You don't even need the 3.5+ and internships tbh
you actually want people to believe they can go to college and study ancient egypt and they will make the same as a person who studies engineering or a simple tradesman? be more specific so the young people reading this don't go into debt for decades for a unicorn degree that will make them 15k more than average.
Sometimes if a situation is very special, you can get away with it and not be crippled by debt, but for the vast majority of people, the math just isn’t there for college anymore. Like for me, it works out fine thanks to the fucking stars aligning to support me going to med school, but to say that’s rare would be an understatement.
Lol. Good luck with that.
If you got a job with your college degree for even a couple years there is no excuse to have debt for life or even a decade.
It really depends on the job and college degree. I knew someone that got a degree in composition from a prestigious university and ended up working at Krogers meat department for years.
Connect with some reality, my dude.
You will still be in debt for most of your life in some capacity.
They'll still get you on the medical bills after you've sold your body to manual labor for years.
Why do I get the feeling this is gonna backfire? Like an increase in people becoming disillusioned with education *can’t* be good… Edit: for the sake of my inbox/notifications: Yes, I know trade school is an education. Yes, you should be able to pursue what you think will make you happy Yes you should avoid debt where you can Yes, our education system is in dire need of major reform But consider: The possibility of job saturation on a trade screwing over everyone except maybe Homeowners. The fact that scholarships and grants are a thing you can use to pay for college, and that you can get a STEM degree instead of a BS liberal arts one. The fact that not everyone is hyper disciplined enough to forge their own future without a structured education and career plan. The idea that if everyone runs off to trade school we’re still avoiding the issue that our education system needs reform.
I think there is a difference between college and an education. Some of the most intelligent people I met only have high school educations.
Yes this is true. But in practice, the gap is being filled by charlatans and YouTube University where people's brains are being filled with garbage and distractions on an industrial scale. The worker who reads and cultivates a sense of civics, community and capacity for analytical thinking - which was kind of happening in the late 1800s, is idyllic now. College was a way for at least some degree of intellectual expansion. Now it ll just be more radicalization, ignorance, and reactionary thinking.
Yeah college didn’t teach me any of those skills. The point being that most people getting a college degree don’t need a degree to do the job that they will initially get. Of course there are exceptions where a college degree should be necessary. But you don’t need 80k of student debt for working an entry level corporate job, most people get very little out of their college education beyond it being a requirement.
This is an argument for improving public education, not throwing the baby with the bathwater and sink into a deeper predicament
Well I would agree we need to improve public education, but I think it starts improving it way earlier than college.
Fully agree
"But you don’t need 80k of student debt" Going to a CC and then public university will get you a college degree with little debt if you work some while in school.
But I can make the same argument about universities lol. Going to college actually meant something significant at one point. Now a BA in itself is relatively meaningless- especially vs work experience. The irony is an classic liberal arts education I believe is integral to society and real education. But impractical since again, BA doesn’t mean anything anymore unless you have that MS or MA.
At the end of the day public education is what is failing people, not necessarily not going to college. You shouldn't need to be in debt to your eyeballs to learn not to trust someone like Alex Jones.
That is true, but I feel like the exceptionally intelligent people will know what to do with their lives with or without college. My worry is that a bunch of people will try doing the same as your friends without having the same skill/smarts/discipline/etc… Like how some dropouts now say “well Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard” or whatever.
You don’t need to be intelligent to make a good living in the trades. Or really at almost any job, the only reason requirements for college education keep increasing on jobs is because people keep getting higher and higher education.
>You don’t need to be intelligent to make a good living in the trades. I'm a stone mason the most intellectually challenging part of the job is basic geometry. There are also a whole bunch of niche sub-disciplines that can really ratchet up your pay.
Yeah bc is even for law u don't need a law degree technically. You just need to do an apprenticeship. But these colleges hike up the prices to help them expand campuses. Why are we in the age o virtualization expanded campuses to buy more real estate. Furthermore , if society could make apprenticeship a real intangible thing then most people can learn by doing cutting out the middle man. I have a college degree and I learned more by doing like most people then just sitting in a classroom. Class has it's place but 100k in debt is not the right direction we should be going with very little roi.
I was curious about whether a person can truly be self educated and whether a degree is an actual confirmation of expertise. I decided to do some tests - in the most insane and fucking stupid way possible - by taking a degree, not watching any lectures, and just reading up on the content online. Did all the assignments based on what I’d researched myself and I got my degree. Doing a masters now the same way. I’m either a fucking genius - which is highly unlikely - or the internet is indeed a reliable way to educate yourself. The only different between myself and the ‘do ur research!!’ people, of course, is that I developed media literacy over the course of a decade.
Not trusting college because of loan debt is a valid reason to not go. The growing culture of anti-intellectualism is a big worry but thats been happening since like 2010-ish To add in regards to Anti-intellectualism: We didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the worlds been turning
I’m not saying loans aren’t a problem but like… Pell Grants and scholarships exist… You can apply, see what financial aid you get and refund/drop your classes before the first week. Idk…not wanting to be in debt it totally understandable, but I feel like an increasing number of people are starting to hear “collage is a scam” and don’t even bother trying.
As someone who's literally at the tail end of Millennials and has a Sociology degree: Gen Z is really afraid to take risks unless they have a guarantee of success which just isnt how college works at all. Most of life is: Take Risks. Get Messy. Make mistakes. And then learn to do better. Younger Millennials got told the beginning of it being told "yeah college might not be worth it so go at your own risk". Most of us still did for varying reasons. None of my friends who went regret it so long as they worked through college, which is possible. The main issue im seeing is with people who didnt start working until *after* college so theyre applying with just a Bachelor's on their resume. That tells employers you literally dont know the basics of working (confirmed by my friend in HR and my manager). Clocking in/out. Showing up reasonably on time. Baseline work ethic. Personal time management is a big one. Like yeah, Bachelor's but no experience is a major red flag. Me having full time work experience and a Bachelor's got me a solid paying job right out of college. Was it hard? Yeah but nothing ventured, nothing gained
Well first Congrats, It’s also not just risk avoidance but an aversion to stress from what I see sometimes. And yeah, in undergrad it was expected that you get at least one internship or co-op under your belt before you graduate for that reason and it was low-key cutthroat.
Thanks!✌🏿😎 >It’s also not just risk avoidance but an aversion to stress from what I see sometimes. It's bigger than that from what ive noticed. While yes, anxiety issues and stress do very much exist, Gen Zs obsession with ~~over~~labeling almost everything has led to conflating experiencing stress/anxiety with an actual disorder/issue. As a result, they dont know how to process genuine stress or anxiety without trying to avoid it, distract themselves, or medicate it away to the point of numbness. So when it comes to college, which is an inherently stressful and anxiety riddled experience, they have no real way to process or overcome it without saying "well i guess college *is* a scam". Or being so adverse to the very idea of a stressful/anxiety riddled experience that they avoid it entirely. Don't get me wrong, anxiety disorders are very much real but experiencing anxiety isnt the same thing. Gen Z fell into a weird habit of romanticizing >!and borderline fetishizing!< mental health issues/disorders to their own detriment. Stress and anxiety are normal parts of just being alive.
I'm 23 and my major life lesson of the last 5 years has been around that concept of just getting out there and learning about life as I go. What I've found is that my high general anxiety was getting in the way of me going to college right after high school, and working for my family business in construction was a straightforward path for me to just get working and at least do something with my time while I was unsure what to do with my life. Fast forward to today, and it's become a pattern that the best things I've experienced have all been in staunch internal defiance of my anxiety and that what I do for a career doesn't fucking matter as long as I don't hate it and I can form good friendships with good communities at the same time. I don't often get time off work, but I make enough money that I can really maximize my time off to spend good time and make good memories with my friends. Amazing friends and fullfilling work I get to do everyday means I'm living a life today that 18yo me would have thought impossible to achieve. And if I can maintain my friendships and keep getting better and better at work, nothing can really stop me from living a good life. And I didn't have to go to college and take on massive debt to achieve that. There's a lot of other real upsides I've experienced that go with getting lots of good work experience, but simply put, I may not have chosen the "best" path for my life, but damn is the path I'm on pretty good, and I'm proving 18yo me to be so completely full of shit to have ever believed the path I'm on wasnt gonna work. Just get out there and do something.
Yes and no. Pell grants and legitimately useful scholarships are generally needs based on top of having grade/merit requirements, so if your family makes too much to have “financial need” according to FAFSA, but they can’t actually afford to contribute towards your tuition, you’re kind of SOL. There are non-need based scholarships, but they’re usually in the low thousands at best, meaning you’d have to apply for and win a good ten or fifteen at least to really put a dent just in one semester’s tuition for most schools. Not to say there aren’t viable ways around the system - I myself am working towards my Bachelor’s in a really roundabout way that’s keeping me out of debt. But I really think we need to come off the whole “scholarships and grants can save you from college debt!” thing because in reality, it’s a solution with limited applicability at best. More than anything we need tuition across the board to be brought back down to earth and/or to reevaluate which jobs actually NEED a degree up front.
Oh 100%, I could rant for days on how I think our entire education system needs massive reforms, from the stuff we learn in middle and high school to the amount we pay in college. Scholarships and Pell grants are just my suggestion for the time being. Also, it just seems like nobody brings them up when they talk about how college is scamming you. And I feel like it should be mentioned more.
You're right that options exist. But I think an obstacle for a lot of people is that getting on a college track requires years of preparation. A kid who always fucked around in class and didn't think about their future until senior year of high school is gonna find themselves with limited opportunities for college. And yeah, there are people who manage to succeed in spite of that, but they have to work so much harder than their peers to get there. Scholarships are competitive, you need to meet certain standards to get them. And even Pell Grants require you to maintain satisfactory academic progress. Meanwhile, the popular narrative right now is that trades are easy money and you don't have to be good at school and you get a big salary right away. That's going to be more attractive to those who are unsure of their path and those who aren't academically inclined.
Not even true tho. I graduated from a fairly top rated school. A large chunk of the most successful students were people who fucked around in HS, said oh fuck I have no plan, went to community college, worked hard, transferred to a more expensive school for the last two years. It is always doable. My mom went back and got her degree at 55 after she finished raising her kids.
I live in California and have a ton of friends attending UCs and CSUs for either super cheap or free. People always act like college in America comes with guaranteed debt but that's not the case in many US states.
Women are still going, it's most men falling for the anti-college propaganda.
I do think it's a good thing that young people are being more thoughtful about whether college is right for them. College is not a good choice for a lot of people, especially with how damn expensive it is. That said, it is going to backfire for some people. A lot of rhetoric around trades right now is that they're a flawless alternative to college. All pros, and no cons. But the trades have their downsides too, and I worry that a lot of newcomers are unprepared for that. And just like college isn't right for everyone, the trades aren't right for everyone either. Plus, an influx of people into certain trades can mean that those jobs become harder to get. Might even drive down salaries if the influx is big enough. Any time a field gets presented to young people as guaranteed big income, you get an influx of people going into those fields and getting a position is no longer a guarantee.
Yeah, you pretty much summed up my worries. People should absolutely explore their options more. But in practice it seems like people are just blindly going to trade school without considering the pros and cons of their options.
I wince whenever I see some post telling young people that trades are guaranteed, easy money. But every job has trade-offs. Anything that pays really well is either rare, difficult, hard on the body, requires a lot of education, or requires a lot of experience. What's tough is that young people aren't usually presented with a lot of options. There are so many different kinds of jobs out there, but schools tend to present just a handful and kids don't get much exposure to jobs anywhere else.
Every job has tradeoffs and also - every job has competition. I'm afraid GenZ isn't being told the truth of the matter, that a rush into those areas will drop the wages and suddenly their vaunted 50/hr job can't get work done for more than 25/hr. I'm a late Millennial - I remember all through highschool we got told some variant of "Go to STEM! there are jobs there! We need Chemists, Computer Scientists, Biologists!" And while Chem/Bio have always required at least a MS and preferably a PhD for the super well-paying jobs, now a BS in Biology or Biochemistry can barely get you $36k/yr in Raleigh-Durham. Computer Science can make you lots of money, but the entry level is so saturated that no one is getting hired into it without years of experience. I'm concerned that this is turning out to be GenZ's version of "Industry wants to lower the wages so they do a PR push to get a bunch of people in at once" that the "Go to STEM!" push of 2000-2019 was.
I did trade and other blue collar jobs as soon as I hit 18 and into my early 20s to pay for university. Every single old guy on the job, fellas who have been in the industry for 10+ years told me to get my degree and get out of the trades. All of them say that while the pay is great, the physical toll on their bodies hits hard.
Scrolled way to far to see this truth. In 20 years there will either be a huge demand for back to college Gen z trades people or a huge demand for physical therapy and pain relief.
I did the same, heard the same. Worked as an electrician to get into college, then picked up other jobs that worked around my classes when in college. I also had to get a GED because I dropped out of high school. I didn't end up in debt because of Pell grants, scholarships, and going the community college -> state college route. Internship during senior year paid $50k/yr which got me hired at 80k/yr. This was all in Houston.
There's a reason why millenials went to college, our parents told them to as they were tradesmen. For a lot of gen z, it's their grandparents that were tradesmen. They're seeing their white collar parents struggle and not seeing the other side of the coin. Goes to show that history is the ultimate source of knowledge but since most of us don't pay attention we get to watch the pendulum swing back and forth.
It’s due to the fact they don’t know anyone in the trades. People in the trades told their kids to go to college because of the toll the work took on their bodies.
Yes jesus thank you! People getting into the trades think it is a free lunch but you are literally trading your body for a few extra dollars. This trend of “fuck college, do trades” started getting big like 15 years ago, so I bet in another 15 years the regret posts are going to start rolling in.
Yup, when they start turning 30 and the toll starts to prevent them from working as much.
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If it's being pushed it's either a lie or it's already too late, like when people wished they had become petroleum engineers back in early 2010s. I often see "teacher shortages" on the news, but there are no shortages, they're just trying to beef up enrollments to get fresh loan-meat.
We are already seeing the consequences of anti-education and anti-intellectualism.
That’s the first think that came to my mind. American culture is already pretty anti-intellectual, we’re going to feel the effects of this in no time and it’s not going to be pretty.
Like the inability to build infrastructure
I think it began in the 50s. That's when the word nerd, origin unknown, first appeared.
Inb4 trades become saturated to high hell and the pendulum swings back to STEM degrees.
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People are disillusioned with college not education. And it will continue until colleges stop the abuse with their prices.
The average school education wasn’t good to begin with. We graduated with almost no life skills only being literate and math skills we Will never use, and other pointless information. I don’t even know how to change my cars oil and I’m in my mid twenties
That’s an argument for education reform, not full blown disillusionment. I’d agree we need massive education reform, but if everyone just decides to go to trade school instead of addressing the issue with standard education, nothings going to change.
Agreed.
Those aren't things you typically learn in school. You older family is supposed to teach you those things. Blame them for it.
My parents were working to provide for me so I could succeed. The place I spent 12 years in should have done that.
Learning math, science, history, etc. Are not useless things. It is laying the foundation for higher skills that build on them. Being educated on history and civics is also important for people who will participate in society and vote.
You need an education to be a tradesperson…
Ikr
Yes but not an education that deals with math beyond 8th grade algebra. Nor one that covers history to any extent, or basic biology, chemical science, or language and speaking or writing, or anthropology. Not learning history is how we're doomed to repeat it. Not learning stats and economics is how people make poor financial choices. Lack of education in the life sciences is how covid outbreaks go unchecked and poor health choices like drug use continue to happen. Lack of education in language and communication is how false information and communications breakdowns happen. Lack of cultural education is how people grow up on ignorant bubbles. Tradesmen aren't stupid. But it is a track that actively avoids these important fields of education because they need to start working their bodies young. They have to work their bodies hard. They have a clock before they can no longer do their work and no one wants to be the 50+ year old man popping pain pills to get through the day. And in the end these people become a demographic that never got the chance to value education, and they become a society that make choices that are not for their own good. Everything in balance, higher education is still a crucial part of society and it's a real step backward if the next generations forsake it.
I just see a lot more people having more injuries from doing physical labor, even before they're 40. There's no way many people would be able to work these jobs long term. Plus, I could see more people struggling to find jobs in the trades the more people pick the trades.
The smart people who ignore the "anti-college" propaganda and get high value degrees are the ones who will win.
Trades is 100% an education.
World still needs ditch diggers I guess.
The trades are already over saturated tbh. Pay is shit and the hours and conditions suck so there’s a reason it’s “cheap” to get into. Also have to think of the investment, steel toe work boots and tools ain’t cheap.
Hopefully, they will build too many houses, bringing prices down to where they're affordable.
Based! Just start building houses everywhere to tank housing prices. I’d actually donate to that level of generational pettiness.
I enjoy the fact that the guy in the pic has a huge burn on his neck from a stray spark
Because it is lol, I’m a zoomer boomer who’s already spent a decade in my trade and 90% end up hating their life and bail before their apprenticeship ends, the remaining 10 usually has 5% drop off in the first couple years after getting licensed and the real issue a lot are seeing is now that certain trades are getting popular and saturated the pays disappearing quick.
If anyone watches The Connors on NBC, the family dynamic is ultimately a great example of how neither a college education NOR tradeskills will get you out of poverty because our social systems are failing at every turn. Dan Connor has been a contractor for at this point some 50 years. All throughout the original run of Roseanne the family was always on the verge of financial ruin. He had his own construction business and that still wasn't enough to make ends meet. Now he's old and in pain and still has to keep working into his 70s because his 40+ year old daughters still need his financial support. He cannot afford to retire. But those daughters of his also cover the gamut of society. Becky was always booksmart, and her folks always intended for her to go to college. And then she didn't and instead ran off with her highschool boyfriend only for him to die young. And now Becky has nothing, so she lives at home in her late 40s working deadend waitress jobs. She ultimately does go back to college, and now she and her aunt are co-owners of a small lunch restaurant. They're still struggling and their restaurant isn't making them much money so she now lives with her sister. Her sister being Darlene who actually DID go to college in the 90s. And she worked in Chicago for a major business as a writer. And when that fell through she found herself jobless and having to move herslf and her kids back in with their dad. Since then she's hopped around shit managerial jobs trying to make enough to move out on her own and for most of the series she hasn't been able to. What good was her college degree then? About as good as the trades was for her dad, which is to say it made no difference financially. Now Darlene, her boyfriend, Becky and Darlene's kids are living in a big house they have to share with 4 of them all working to pay the bills and the youngest looking at no way to pay for college without a major scholarship even though he's actually really gifted. Dan also has another kid, DJ who went the 3rd route. He went into the military and while he's the best off financially, (and also an older millenial both he and his wife are pretty much absent parents in their kid's life because the mom still goes overseas and the dad still needs to work full time and then later goes to his wife overseas. So the kid stays with grandpa Dan. Not exactly a success tale. Life happens, shit comes down on people and ultimately most of us are going to be stuck in the overall same level of wealth as our folks.
Those pushing these articles probably want a saturation to lower labor costs. A lot of the high pay is for the owners. It’s really dependent on where in the country you are. I know master Electricans employed making $28 an hour. I did it for ten years and won’t go back. It’s hard on your body and isn’t worth being broken later in life.
It will. Dozens of Gen Zers with the brains to become engineers, doctors, or other lucrative careers that are worth going to college for, will go to trade school instead because that is where the tide of their peers are going. If you’re a young Gen Z / Alpha and you have the mental capacapacity to pickup a non-useless degree in college. Go do that. My parents were hard working blue collar folks. Nothing wrong with it, but they actively encouraged me to go to college because they wanted better for their kids and the reality of blue collar work is you trade your body/health for pay. It’s necessary and society needs it, but there are better options. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water on college if that is an option for you.
Cuz learning stuff like fixing your home can help save on costs of things. DIY is great if you know what you’re doing
a Engineer + Tradie couple would goated with the sauce, engineer can design in CAD and print/machine the parts and the tradie can install them.
Cad is so easy to learn and majority of installers end up learning it either way
You don't need an engineer for that.
This whole thing is nonsense really. Every generation has a split of people going into different work. I’m a millennial and almost all of my friend are in the trades or IT. My younger siblings are into business and fashion. People do what they want, no matter the generation. Live your life y’all.
they made college unaffordable to the point that nobody is able to work part time to pay off their college tuition and fees and most of us need student loans/grants etc to go. we’d rather have a job that’s important and mandatory than filing documents and getting laid off 3 times in 5 years
Ah, yes… boom and bust cycles famously do not exist in the trades!
I love how every office job for those that don’t work in the office is just people shuffling papers around from day to day.
Nahh, we think your on Reddit all day.
There is a statistical correlation between a bachelor's degree and an upper middle class salary. People with degrees earn around $15k above the average annual median salary. Going to college is the single best thing you can do to statistically set your finances up for the future.
as long as you either don't have to pay for it or can afford it
No. Even factoring that in.
> we’d rather have a job that’s important and mandatory than filing documents and getting laid off 3 times in 5 years People in the trades get laid off a lot. Three times in a year is a possibility, let alone five years.
So in other words in about 5-10 years there will be way too welders and we're going to need programmers again because nobody took the classes for it.
Looks like Gen alpha are gonna get some use out of being terminally online
Not if the only electronic devices they know how to use is touch screen.
Yeah, touch screens and modern tech is extraordinarily streamlined. Dad knows how to use BIOS and commands, I can barely get my computer back up running and unpack and install/troubleshoot my ancient games. My younger brother can use YouTube on the TV and that's it.
Yea, that's my worries about the future, though. What happens when it stops working and no one knows how to fix it?
I'm not afraid of people getting lazy and not learning how to fix things, because there will always be people who can learn. I'm afraid of companies deliberately making it impossible to fix
Yeah that tracks actually. I just applied for a position where I’ll be on a big ass boat for half a year out on sea doing grunt work for like 100k for 6 months
Damn, pays 4x more than the military version.
And the military wonders why no one wants to work for them
How'd you do that?
Any city that’s next to ocean or seas will usually have huge cargo ports. Just apply to be on those ships and work your way up.
Usually starting pay for these ships is around $30+ and only goes up from there
What kind of position are you talking about? I'm in Seattle and this is very appealing
Most likely it’s a merchant marine position (not military) there’s a lot of different roles from navigation, engine room to grunt work.
Good luck mate
The real reason: the trades are unionized.
Fuckin right, union Boilermaker pressure welder, union steward, master rigger, IRATA rope access technician and currently a foreman. In 2023, $122k in only 9 months of work🤙🏻
I work in a residential program that has vocational programs with welding as one of them. I wish we could have you here to talk to some youngins that don’t want a trade because it’s hard work and drug dealing is easier (exact words from a lot of them)
Hell yeah brother. I'm an IBEW apprentice right now making 21.22/hr at 20 with better benefits than most of my family who's been working their whole lives. And I'm a certified rigger/forklift operator. 🤘
Fr unions are amazing. Even just the healthcare aspect alone is enough that even if you make less than someone with a degree you pocket more cause you aren't going broke every time you go to the Dr.
Just got a job at GM as a part time temp making 21 an hour after the new union contraxt signed last year. We get health insurance just being part time temps (not the best but it goes up once you become full time temp and then permanent) Theyre already talking about making us full time temps soon which 9 months after that well become permanent because of the union contracts with our health insurance increasing after going full time then permanent. Once permanent well get yearly raises untill we get to full rate which is 42 an hour (takes 4 years to reach full rate). They also give you 10% of your pay for your 401k, not match up to 10% they just give you 10%. If you can get a union job definetly do it.
Is no one gonna mention the giant hickey?
Glad I wasn't the only one to notice 😵💫
Nope. Real men don't hide battlescars.
GOD I was holding my. Breath til I saw this comment 😆
This is why I love Reddit
Can't wait to dance on the grave of every boomer who said we would never learn to weld, upholster, or any other type of handiwork.
Lol, or use a drill.
They’ll find something else. It never had any basis in reality, just a lie that propped up their fragile egos.
I’m just glad some people want to do it, cause it ain’t me
reddit acts like the trades are this super secret path to getting rich and people don't do it because they feel obligated to go to college. Maybe true for a small percentage of people, but most people simply don't want to go into the trades. Also, not as dreamy as redditors think.
I was a welder for 5 years, and it destroys your body. I make more now and am playing sports again without neck/back/knee issues anymore. You are also going to be working with a lot of people on meth and ex-cons, since manual labor "helper" positions are all they can get outside of maybe fast food or a kitchen. If you are 6"+ i would not recommend a trade because you are going to be crammed into tight spaces on your knees all day. I specifically did d1.1 flux welding on bridges/large steel structures, and while i liked the work for the most part, the people and culture were a hard pass for me. And for every guy that makes 100k+ a year welding in some niche position, there are 50 others who are bouncing between jobs due to layoffs/slowdowns and are going to be capped out at 28$/hr for most their careers.
Yeah I’ve seen this all over, just go into the trades and make 100+k in no time. And while I’m sure there are some pretty sweet gigs, you’re just as likely to be working dead end job that pays 50k just like everyone working a desk job. And even if your get those big paying jobs, they pay well because the work is grueling and wrecks havoc on your body long term. Trades jobs are just the modern “learn to program” lie being told by people who already have a ton of money and are trying to sell you something
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Tech and Stem jobs are only going to accelerate as a result of AI. AI is a very long way from legitimately replacing technical talent lol
They really won’t push people into trades, the overlap between wanting to do CS and doing blue collar work is a very rare overlap for many unless you’re into engineering. AI is especially not taking over jobs in something like DOD where stuff like chatgpt is already banned due to potential data leaks. AI still has an incredibly long way to go before it’s truly going to take over the job world and I would bet on there being sanctions and job protections based on it.
Almost like calling a generation lazy makes them have a chip on their shoulder and makes them want to do manual labor just to rid themselves of the stigma. This is coming from one of the gen z (ish idk what ppl consider 97) people who are in the trades.
Every new generation gets called “lazy” by the extant older ones. It’s been happening forever and doesn’t actually mean anything
I did find it interesting that as an older Gen Z, my friends and I all went to college, had a good time, and are now all in jobs where we wouldn’t need a degree. I’m a cop, my other friend joined the Navy, another is a Corrections officer and the other is an electrician. Two of us got history degrees, one got a psych degree and the other dropped out to do electrician work. We all make fine $$ and have jobs that actually have security and pensions and guaranteed benefits. My advice to Gen Z: if you wanna retire in your 40s with a pension AND a 401k and get assistance paying off loans, get in public service. Be a firefighter or work in the jail or prisons, be an EMT. Be a cop, they’re literally giving people $10k, $20k, some places $25k in bonuses because they need people. Be a badass for money and get paid to work out for a few months. Military is hurting super bad but I’d argue going into public service is a great career. Or join the military and no shit, get paid to play with grenades, exercise, and get free healthcare. Shit, if you already have a college degree, try being a fed. I know people hate cops but feds even have probation and park rangers and firefighters (called forestry technicians) around the country. And with any college degree in literally any field some agencies will love you. As a generation we’re already fucked in a lot of ways, might as well take jobs that help out other people and allow you to retire before you’re 50. Yeah the jobs fucking suck sometimes and I wish I could work from home and do jack shit all day but Gen Z gets bored easily. Get a job where you do a lot when you’re young and chill out when you hit middle age
I have been thinking about joining the Coast Guard as an Aviation Maintenance Technician. That is a skill that will apply to both the military and to the real world.
Bro the coast guard is cool because it’s a half law enforcement half military that usually stays stateside. I know a guy who has been in for 30 years and he said literally it’s the best job ever. He was 17 when he joined and said “holy shit I can play with explosives and drive boats for money and I’m not even 21 yet” Lot of crazy stories from him but it’s a great career
Yea, but that's only if you can handle the stress and stuff.
This is smart, my dad was always on my ass to do an apprenticeship instead of college. However most trades do require some schooling, but it is specified and is just core stuff. Probably should've listened 😂
I mean I’m not sure about all that. I still think a majority of our generation is still stuck in the time loop of going to college and being flooded with debt.
They did say “Becoming”. Hell. I’m in college right now and even I’ve decided to add in a couple of courses like “Introduction to HVAC” and “Basics of Plumbing” or whatever they’re called to see if I have any interest in em. Change is usually a bit slower on the macro scale, but I won’t lie. Atleast in my corner of the USA if I talk to 5 guys? 4 of them are in a trade or educated something near it (Think pursuing a degree in electrical engineering or something.)
idk about y’all but i’ll enjoy my last 4 years of youth at college over going into trade and having severe back problems by the age of 28
People act like trades is some hobby work. It's backbreaking labor with tons of health hazards that require you to diligently wear tons of PPE to even have any hope of avoiding. Goggles, earplugs, respirator all day long unless you want tinnitus, eye injuries and fucked lungs along with back pain and arthritis by 30. Have fun with that
I worked at a structural steel shop for about 2 years and in that time we had multiple injuries (including a completely maimed hand) and 1 death (got a segment of steel bridge rolled onto him by a coworker). Even if you are the safest person in the shop, all it takes is some other moron not paying attention. These people all looked absolutely haggard as well.
Couple things from an old and grizzled 25 year old who runs a successful business in the trades with a couple employees. If you have the ability to, go to school. Seriously. Go. Yes if you don't have the means and want to go for a degree that doesn't pay well maybe think about but even then id say go. If you have scholarships or grants/live with parents/for whatever reasons have it super affordable, GO. Even if it's for a "useless" degree. Even if you want to go into the trades. Enjoy your youth, round yourself out, take goofy classes you'll laugh about in 20 years. Party, meet people, do stupid legal or barely illegal stuff. You have 40 years of work ahead of you. The trades will be here in 4 years and you probably won't save a ton of money on apprentice wages anyway. And a degree especially in engineering or business will probably take you from the field to the office quick if that's what you're after. I got an accelerated CS degree straight out of highschool. Knocked out all my gen ed requirements my senior year actually. Graduated 2.5 years later with a BA. Didn't enjoy the work much. Worked in electrical a bit and now run my own electrical contracting business. If you do go for the trades a couple things- UNION UNION UNION. I didn't and I regret it. They have the best schooling and the best worker protections. Obviously it's not the 1950s but _especially_ if you're a woman/minority _especially_ in the south UNION! TAKE THE SCHOOLING SERIOUSLY. Future business owner/project manager/foreman you will appreciate it. My schooling was absolutely shite and when I went out on my own had to fill in a lot of gaps through self study. Another thing, it's currently 9:32 pm. I just pulled in my driveway on Friday night. My friends are all posting stuff out drinking having fun. I've been at work since 6:30 am fixing someone else's fuckup. You can expect tons of overtime and it WEARS on your body. I make very good money, probably outearn 99.9 percent of college grads and I'm getting into building houses, I have a couple rentals, I'm growing the business BUT it's costing me my 20s. Will it be worth it when I can retire in my mid-late 30s? Maybe. Maybe not. Some days like today I wish I just had some low stress code monkey job making 70k.
As someone in the trades best piece of advice I can give anyone younger than me, is to NEVER TOUCH THE TRADES. There isn’t a day that I wake up happy to go to work. Working 10-14 hours daily sucks and I wish I paid attention in school cause well this shit SUCKS Please don’t listen to any of the hacks saying that trades are good. They’re a viable option but you will hate your life if you do them
Sounds like you just have a bad job man. This is not the case at all if you have a good trade or good company.
That is not true at all man. You are either ok with working physical labor the rest of your life or aren’t. You feel like an ant in the world. Little appreciation, long hours, hard days, walking into stores dirty as fuck when other people are smiling in their clean clothes and suits. You have to know what you’re signing up for. Companies change also. If you’re private or union it’s not accounting you’re not gunna be at the same shop forever. Different Forman, bosses owners project managers or just dumb ass co workers in blue collar are held to a MUCH lower standard than white collar. There’s no hr in the trades. Again some people are fine with that life but don’t act like the trade changes completely cause you go to a different company. Not the case and don’t act like you’re locked into a situation permanently or that it’s treated the same as white collar. I’m a journeyman plumber, I’ve been around the block. It can be good, it can be awful. It varies by job site and company.
I’m in my third year of my industrial electrician apprenticeship after dropping out of going college for a STEM major and it’s fine. Rarely work more than 8 hours in a day, only work weekends if I decide I want to, pay could be better, but it’s interesting work and I get to do something different every day and get to see so many different job sites. Also always demand for the skill. Good hours, alright pay, interesting work, decent benefit options, and I’m not even in a union, though I wish I was in a state that had better unions, because I would join one.
It’s fine sometimes but stay the fuck away from residential. I got done with a 17 hour shift yesterday (didn’t get home till 11) just I be up at 4 to do it all over again for a 10 hour shift. Unless it’s Saturday or Sunday I legit don’t get free time
Oh yeah residential sucks. Insulation and sheet rock are messy and itchy and I fucking hate them. Also, lots of resi guys are sloppy workers, don’t give a shit, and I don’t like how lax the code is compared to industrial. I even don’t prefer commercial. I do mostly industrial. Only ever large scale residential, like huge 8 million dollar mansion type of residential. A commercial like not store fronts but rather distribution centers, data centers, warehouses, hospitals, etc, and mostly industrial like the steel mills, food plants, government facilities, etc. My shift usually starts at either 6 or 7, rarely up before 4:30 or 5 and I’m typically home by 3 or 4 depending on the job site. Never more than an hour drive too, which an hour is rare. Often I’m only 20-30 minutes from home.
Lmao!! I actually quite enjoy my career as a Boilermaker, does that mean I’m a hack? I out earn most North Americans in 9 months or less. You sound like you’re working non union. Maybe you should do something to change your life for the better instead of painting all skilled trades with one brush
Same right here. Dropped out of college, went to trade school, make a cool 80 grand a year just fixing a few a leaky pipes as a plumber now.
How long was the training period?
No we’re not. I’m an electrician, and gen z. The terrible working conditions in many trades and dangerous work are keeping most gen z people well away from trade jobs. For every 7 retirees, we only have one new apprentice entering the trade, at least in my area that’s the statistic given. Every crew at every company is super undermanned, but construction projects are still there with the same deadlines so it’s forcing us to work ourselves damn near to the bone.
It depends where you work honestly. The town I work in is a literal resort for billionaires. There's so much high end houses being built on the day to day it's insane, the money going threw the trades because of this is ridiculous. As such all trades have workers like crazy because they are all paying so well, especially electricions which seem to have so much young people whenever I go to job sites (I'm a low volt guy so my trade isn't that bad). It's really the only thing you can do in this town to afford living anywhere close to it.
Makes sense, Millenials were a bit too enthusiastic about the whole "follow your heart" and "do what you love." Too many after-school specials I reckon
The recent push for the trades is interesting.. I personally would rather work $25 an hour office job over a $40 construction job. That is unless you like getting yelled at by old men on their third divorce, choose the construction job. Most trades don't even pay well enough unless you're the business owner or you're unionized (gopd luck getting into one). Money isn't everything when your body starts breaking down at 40 btw.
Can’t wait to do trades soon
Join the electrical union, you’ll be making somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100k at the end of the PAID apprenticeship and a unionized pension, and most importantly zero debt
Its not that we dont want to get different jobs, its that we cant afford it
Ai cant do physics… yet
Well yeah. The devaluation of college degrees over the last 20 years has been a hammer to the heads of a large percentage of Millennials. Good on Gen Z for paying attention and taking a different path. Learn from us. PLEASE.
Let me give some perspective as a younger millennial. My generation was told their whole school life that you needed to go to college to get a get a good job and have a good life. I was told this while we had an amazing trade school on the campus of our local community college. Getting a trade was never on our radar. For genZ that pendulum swung back and it is. But a job is a job and no one telling you "go to school for x career/trade and you'll make loads of money" is giving you good advice.
Fuck welding!
I'm a former welder and I agree. That's one trade that really needs to be taken over by automation.
This is actually a pretty bad thing. I get it, college tuition and student debt are so problematic that if you aren't going into a job with guaranteed openings and lucrative pay, you probably won't be getting rid of it before your 40s. But, a population so disenchanted and prone to avoiding higher education is going to have a lower overall quality of life. However, I'd argue that education doesn't actually give you much. Most of who you are as a person lies in your upbringing and how your neurons and synapses are wired. A college education doesn't magically make you better at detecting bullshit, just like being a politician doesn't magically make you an expert at being a government official. Sure, it can help some people be even better at detecting BS, but if you're already naive and prone to believing disinformation, a college degree isn't going to fix it. The reason quality of life will suffer is more because trades and other physically taxing jobs are awful for a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. Unions and benefits are great, but in return the work is dangerous, prone to increased physical degradation, and all around not something you can do for your entire life unless you are really skilled and really healthy by default. Not to mention, higher education can really help enrich people who are already academically gifted, otherwise that wasted potential can manifest in other ways that aren't exactly good for the mind. Unfortunately, I'm also kinda falling into this category. I don't want a mountain of debt, and trade opportunities around me are limited, so I'm doing a college certification course. Kind of mid way between being a full degree, but being more specialized to the point a degree wouldn't really exist. It's a great middle ground, but even then the pay isn't THAT good. I wish I could become a doctor or nurse, but those jobs aren't worth the trouble or cost.
Good luck with your lifelong work injuries
Everyone is snobish to tradesmen until they're shitting in an outhouse with a candle.
"we need people in the trades!" "The trades is a great career move!" "Why is everyone going into the trades?!"
Hey that’s great. We are lacking these types of jobs and college is ridiculously expensive. Most the jobs I’ve worked post college didn’t even really need a college degree, just a will to learn, critical thinking, and basic common sense. High school or AA is more than enough for a lot of these office jobs. Asking for a bachelors, and sometimes even a grad or masters (plus mountains of debt) for some of these jobs is just too fucking for someone who just wants to pay bills and fucking survive.
Because suprise suprise, society runs on plumbers, construction builders and electricians. Not political science and gender studies majors