Whats your Career/Job?

[ben_travis]

I'm an engineering geologist / geotechnical engineer.

While I don't think you sold it very well there Nick (and i am probably about to do the same for my job), I would imagine that could be a pretty interesting career.

I work as a project engineer in the oil and gas industry, dealing with, amongst other things, the commissioning of subsea pipelines. This is after I had already tried to start my life out as an Architect...but gave it three years before i couldn't go any further with it. I couldn't stand the thought of drawing another house extension on CAD...

[HippY]

Not sure how old you are but from my experience I wanted to do the same with the PC side of things; but I got bored with the 'hardware' side of things really quickly.

I wanted to setup a business doing repairs for the home users, but what held me back was the ever reducing cost of laptops in the retail market - I'm sure people will quote macs at me and top spec laptops, but generally these devices are becoming disposable, but now the market is turning towards mobile computing, in business and home, and therefore I feel that the days of the home laptop user are numbered.

I started out wanting to fix laptops and PCs, but where do you go from there? No room for improving your skill set in my honest opinion.

In my current workplace, a laptop breaks - buy another one or get it on a 3 year warranty.

A server breaks, we have a care plan so HP come and fix it for us.

Laptop playing up - we have a server which installs everything for us automatically, plug it in and leave it. It all comes down to cost reduction and time saving. So in the end me stripping a laptop down to replace a motherboard is not a good use of my time or the companies time - so we crush it and buy another.

I'm not putting your dreams down there, as much as It may sound that way, I guess it you're after happiness go for it, if you're after making a lot of money, I'd rethink if a bit.

Well, this post made me rethink some stuff

You can buy good laptops around £300. If you dont want to do anything than a big screen facebook machine, you can with OS

I hate to fix them. So many screw so small place

I wanted to go for high end PC assembling, and reselling mainly, but who would buy them? Alienware and Xbox and PS are big competitors

I dont know what to do. Something that includes hardware would be awesome

[N.Wood]

While I don't think you sold it very well there Nick (and i am probably about to do the same for my job), I would imagine that could be a pretty interesting career.

I work as a project engineer in the oil and gas industry, dealing with, amongst other things, the commissioning of subsea pipelines. This is after I had already tried to start my life out as an Architect...but gave it three years before i couldn't go any further with it. I couldn't stand the thought of drawing another house extension on CAD...

Haha, couldn't reallly be bothered to go into it but yeah you're right its pretty interesting.

My role is so varied I do everything from help out in the laboratory to managing the site work to writing and sending the reports out.

Have been doing a lot of solar work recently, we have a contract with Hilti (same company as the drills etc) to do their solar sites and we are one of the only companies in the country to work out how to accurately test the steel piles solar panels sit on to see if they pass the loadings worked out by the structural guys for wind / snow loadings etc. This can then save them around 300mm off each pile, and if there are 40,000 steel piles in a field that adds up to be a lot.

I manage / supervise up to 6 drillers on site (you'll know what drillers are like...) and run the day to day logistics of the job as well as collecting and collating the data.

This week I have been working on a project involving a new disabled access bridge in St Austell station, Cornwall. I was there for a couple of weeks before christmas, again managing a team of 4 drillers and keeping 3 clients happy who had a full time site presence.

That involved them digging and reinstating 6 hand excavated slit trenches up to 8m long 1.2 m deep while another team ran one of our rotary rigs which needed rock coring to 15m below ground level.

Thats is more our bread and butter work, but recently solar and previously wind turbine stuff helped us through when the schools and hospitals etc wernt having any redevelopment.

I've worked from lands end to the isle of sheppey to hull to norfolk to north wales and everywhere in between, various airports big (heathrow) and small (Newquay, Exeter), interesting factories and buildings (Thatchers Cider, a WD40 plant, abandoned holiday parks, empty Currys electrical shop, Jasper Conran's house, yadda yadda) and plenty of time in open fields away from anyone.

[anzo]

Well, this post made me rethink some stuff

You can buy good laptops around £300. If you dont want to do anything than a big screen facebook machine, you can with OS

I hate to fix them. So many screw so small place

I wanted to go for high end PC assembling, and reselling mainly, but who would buy them? Alienware and Xbox and PS are big competitors

I dont know what to do. Something that includes hardware would be awesome

I'd assume that the people buying the top end 'Alienware' stuff know enough about computers to build them themselves.

Have you looked into network engineering?

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

I make sure your house, the roads you drive on, the wind turbines and solar parks you see, the bridges you drive over and the office you work in doesn't fall over or subside.

And a brilliant job you're making of it too...

I did a degree in Aerospace Engineering at Southampton followed by an Engineering Doctorate developing the aero package of the Ford Focus WRC06 and Ford Fiesta RS WRC rally cars. When I finished that there was a job available at the Uni's wind tunnels as a Research Engineer which I applied for and got and I'm now the 'director' of the wind tunnels at Southampton. basically look after all things related to the tunnels from the instrumentation and arranging general maintenance to helping students and researchers get the most from their wind tunnel time, supervise projects and act as consultant engineer for customers. It's pretty much what I've wanted to do since I was about 12 so can't complain!

[Monty99]

Photographer... it sucks

to all the young readers:

finish school, go to university and become a little piece in a big system, if you want to earn the big money

it's not what teachers/professors will tell you, but they now it's true

[Muel]

to all the young readers:

finish school, go to university and become a little piece in a big system, if you want to earn the big money

I don't know a single rich person who did that. You can get to a comfortable wage/lifestyle doing that (£40k usually), but everyone I know who has big money coming in didn't go to uni and started their own business instead.

[Pashley26]

LOL, I don't have a single friend who has gone to uni and isn't in 30K's worth of debt or earns more than me. And I never even went to school.

If earning money is your main goal, you have either got it or you haven't. People who earn BIG money have a different mindset to the standard 50K a year millionaire.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Pashley26

[Mark W]

I love reading anecdotal 'evidence' in threads like these.

EDIT: Just in the sense that graduates on average DO earn more than non-graduates. Irrespective of the amount of people who seemingly have chips on their shoulders about whether people do/don't go to uni, and consequently about the worth of it, that's fact. Yes, there are people like Alan Sugar who are keen to let people know they didn't go to uni, but how many Alan Sugars are there in the world? Hint: Fewer than the number of people in well paid positions as a result of doing a degree of some sort.

[Monty99]

Ok... maybe the "big" money wasn't the right term, what i meant was the... "comfortable" money. I'd love to believe that a academic title doesn't make life easier, but it does. People in high-paying jobs - jobs a non-graduate has almost no chance of getting - seem to worry about the wrong stuff. If you think you got it tough because you're getting nowhere at your current CAD-project, or you think the world comes to an end, because you quoted the wrong legal text. Don't worry, you're allready in a position where the shit drops on somebody elses head below you.

Just use the system, dont act like an infant... it's possible to earn roughly double than what the average craftsman does just by finishing a certain study, even though the craftsman might have 20+ years more experience than you do.

I dont know how graduates suit the economics in GB, but where i come from 9/10 (non engineering-)academics are worthless to any company (I know at least four of my friend who would agree and just go with it). And if you say it's the companies job to educate them and make them "fit", then why finish an university to begin with?

you may substract 40% of the negativity in my post, since I'm currently stepping into a small business ownership involving a dead branch in which you can only survive by sucking up to people... yay!

Edited January 4, 2014 by Monty99

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

LOL, I don't have a single friend who has gone to uni and isn't in 30K's worth of debt or earns more than me.

I think you probably do.

[Luke Rainbird]

You just don't know that you know them.

Graduates earn an average of £160,000 more over a working lifetime. Average, so doesn't work for every one, but yeah. Dem's the facts.

[Little Yoshi]

I'm a plant operator for a small firm. So means that I might be in the digger one day then mixing concrete the next and laying blocks or pipes the day after. Keeps the work varied. Also means most of the time I just play in diggers. Also means that I can take the tickets I have to pretty much anywhere in the world which is handy.

[CurtisRider]

I didn't do too well at my A levels due to not knowing what I wanted to do and having very poor support at school which ruined my enthusiasm and willingness to work. I worked on my dads farm for a bit, then for a cycle distributor, and as a builder after that until the recession kicked in. During that time I always thought it would be nice to share my enthusiasm for designing and making things with others. The recession was probably the best thing that happened to me, as I lost my building job which wasn't going to lead to much and had the opportunity to go to college to do an Art and Design foundation course to get me some extra UCAS points. It was at this point I decided I wanted to be a teacher. I went to Uni to study photography/graphic design with the idea of doing a PGCE afterwards, but hated the course and the art fags around me which meant I didn't really go that often and played with cars instead, again this was a good thing as it was obvious I needed to focus on doing something I really loved. I found a degree course which suited me perfectly, I got to do product design, make stuff and learn about teaching along with getting to do a PGCE as my third year. I worked really hard, loved it all and got a first, even after having a year of horrific back pain and having part of one of my discs removed.

I am now an NQT teaching Design and Technology (and I can teach all of the subjects under the DT umbrella which makes me pretty valuable). I don't earn much yet (22K) but my pay will gradually increase (32K) and i'm aiming to become a head of department (40K). To do all this I needed a focus and to stop being a lazy chump which I think I have achieved!

[Pashley26]

Compared to WHAT though.

Do these graduates earn more compared to people who leave school and go straight on to work? Or is it a comparison of mid 20 year olds earning x amount compared to a 17 year old who has just left school and started in Sainsburys?

Do these figures include the potential three years full time wage potentially lost by this further education?

Do these figures include the people who leave as a graduate then can't get employment?

Or is this just cherry picking the fortunate?

That's the problem as I see it, friends of mine leave school, go to uni on the promise of a bad ass job when they leave (because society tells them, rightly or wrongly that Uni is the right thing to do) and then leave with nothing. Usually because they should have chosen to gone back to college and inadvertently chose the wrong path of education...

Hypothetical conversation playing all devils advocate of cause.

As per my Sainsburys reference earlier, one of my close friends is a department assistant manager at Sainsburys, as part of their post graduate scheme.

They earn comparable wages compared to the person who they went to school with who is assistant routing manager for the click or collect service.

Both the same age, both the same job title. One started at the bottom and worked up over 4 years, the other went to uni to study and came out into a similar job but has no respect from her peers who are much older and more experienced.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Pashley26

[Mark W]

I love reading anecdotal 'evidence' in threads like these.

EDIT: Just in the sense that graduates on average DO earn more than non-graduates. Irrespective of the amount of people who seemingly have chips on their shoulders about whether people do/don't go to uni, and consequently about the worth of it, that's fact. Yes, there are people like Alan Sugar who are keen to let people know they didn't go to uni, but how many Alan Sugars are there in the world? Hint: Fewer than the number of people in well paid positions as a result of doing a degree of some sort.

You just don't know that you know them.

Graduates earn an average of £160,000 more over a working lifetime. Average, so doesn't work for every one, but yeah. Dem's the facts.

"Average" is the key word there That's what I was referring to about the anecdotal evidence thing - a few instances specific to your own friendship group don't necessarily portray the realities of the situation for the majority. All of my friends from school with degrees earn more than those without, which is a trend likely to continue throughout their working lives. That doesn't mean I think everyone should go to university, but it does mean that I'm aware that studying for a degree (and not even necessarily gaining one) can enrich people both financially and personally.

[Pashley26]

I got told this morning that 75% of people finance their car through a bank loan.

It's on the regional statistics for our 1/4 year review.

My statistics from my 72 sales this 1/4 say that over 80% of my customers finance through the dealer ship and less than 5% pay through a bank sourced loan.

My manager seeing that statistic has launched a huge dealer finance incentive costing thousands. But it isn't necessary.

My argument here is that if the statistics were localised then maybe individual demographics would view University in a different way?

Statiscs are always flawed because they aren't localised. Whilst you might have 100 friends who all went to Manchester University who earn 100k on the stock market, I might have 100 friends who went to uni in Plymouth and earn £4.60 down the fish market.

I don't, because I don't have 100 friends. But as a rule, I ignore statistics and speak locally with my own findings.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Pashley26

[Mark W]

You seem to be misunderstanding the whole 'average' thing here If it's 75% of people over the whole of the UK then you might get some dealerships that have 5% of them paying with a bank loan, but you might get 100% at another one. 75% won't have been plucked out of thin air - it's an average number, the same that the average graduate wage compared to the average non-graduate wage will be higher.

Similarly, as we're talking about people all over the UK (and the world), your specific example about your friends is less relevant than a national average based on actual figures. The only thing that your "statistic" tells us is that people who aren't friends with you are better off

[Pashley26]

But it's local.

So my dealership is spending thousands unnecessarily on a finance incentive, because regionally we are seen to be suffering, but more locally we are the total opposite to the statics.

The same can surely be said for a university? If it is in an area where employment is down, but the national average is saying that graduates are being paid higher then that average isn't relevant. Because you should be looking more local for your specific area or demagraphic?

I would rather see a break down of;

X students from Y University which studied Z degree now earn £.

So you could see which studies, and which universities it is which are growing.

Because the peaks and troughs are what matters locally and statistics are far more important when they are personalised. For me anyway.

I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying, but I don't really care for "national" averages, because generally speaking they don't effect me quite so greatly.

[Mark W]

You can find out what graduate earnings are like from different universities online (in fact here it is), in the same way there are league tables for universities so you can see which are theoretically shit and which aren't. It's also still a national thing because you're not tied to the area you live in before or during uni. I'm from Mid Wales, I went to university in London, my first full time job was in Preston. Again, that's why it's done on a national basis rather than a you-and-your-friends basis...

[Pashley26]

If I said...

"I'm going to go to University because statistics say that on average I will earn X amount more per year when I graduate than if I don't go to University."

But locally that wasn't true. The statistic has led me to believe that I should go to University, because I will earn more.

When actually the true statistics for my locality are that when I leave University I will struggle to find employment, have lots of debt and not be able to fiancially support myself because my local demographic is the trough of the statistic. I probably shouldn't have gone to University and I should have just started at the bottom of my chosen profession and worked my way up into my employment. Which is where I am now because I can't walk straight into the job I want because the graduates from last year already have the jobs I want...

Is that a hugely complex thing to understand? Or have I just written it badly?

[Mark W]

You don't have to go to university locally, you don't have to work locally. You can research the prospects for your university, you can research the prospects and best locations for your chosen career path.

Your previous example: My friends with degrees earn less than my friends without.

Not everyone who is going to university is going to university where you are, studying the same courses your friends took and trying to do the same jobs as them. That is why your anecdotal evidence has little bearing on what it's like for other people, because you're using a specific set of circumstances than aren't the same circumstances for the majority of people.

[Pashley26]

As it might be apparent, I don't see the point in University.

Why do people go to University? Is it genuinely because they think they will earn more when they graduate? Social and internal pressure to achieve? Social awareness and understanding? A continuation of structure and process to guide you into adult life? Or a genuine desire to continue your learning and expand your knowledge?

If that could be done honestly, that would be an interesting statistic.

[Mark W]

As it might be apparent, I don't see the point in University.

Do you see the point in doctors?

[Pashley26]

I do.

I don't see the point in a lot of other shite Universities seem to subsidise.