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So I have a rare opportunity to go back to school starting in June. A little background info on me first. My dad happens to be a semi wealthy business owner, who I have had to rely heavily on him for financial add my entire life. Even when I've had decent jobs, it hasn't been quite enough to get by. My wife makes a crap wage, as do I. So he has been very gracious and supportive of our family. I have two kids and am going to be 30 this year. I'm tired of my parents having to fork over dough to help us out all the time. I've gone to school several times but do not have a degree. So my dad has decided to pay for me to go back to school so I can better provide for myself and my family. I will go part time at my job and become a full time student.

Notable things I've gone to school for that did not pan out for one reason or another

IT-very brief schooling but did not maintain certs
EMS/Firefighting-Still hold certs in this, in fact my Fire and Haz-Mat certs are good for life, but finding a fucking job as a firefighter has been the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. I almost don't even want to talk about it because it pisses me off so much.
Personal Training-I went to school for 13 fucking months for this shit and could not find an internship so I could complete my degree. I applied at over 30 gyms and could not find anyone to hire me. So 13 months wasted along with 17k. Fuck my life.

So! Once again I approach the idea of going to school. Right now I work in fucking grocery store and despite my best efforts, have been unable to move up in the company as of yet. I don't expect the world because I've only been there a year, but I have 10+ years of experience being over 40 managers in 11 states and they won't even make me a fucking supervisor. I've interviewed 3 times and they end up giving it to less qualified people. Fuck my life once again.

Anyway, back to school. I need some advice. I am thinking about potential career paths. I have decided and realized that my career does not have to be the exact things I am passionate about. I need to make more money and in order to do that, I need to be in the right field.

So I'm debating the following.

Computer Engineering-will take longer, and be hard as hell, but worth it in the end
HVAC Degree-2 years of my life and could make like 30 bucks an hour
Electric Engineering-Same as computer basically as far as time is concerned
Nursing-Yea, yea. Male nurse. I know. But I'm already interested in the medical field.

???

Ok. So what do you guys think? Given my situation, what would you do?

There is always going to be a need for nurses and health providers. If you're already thinking about it, why not? My girlfriend is headed in that direction as well. There are several levels of nurse-ship, all with their benefits, and they only get better as you move up

I think HVAC and nursing are the more practical options.

I think Nursing would be great, especially since you're thinking about that already, and it seems to be a lucrative field

Chankgeez wrote:I think HVAC and nursing are the more practical options.

Yeah dude, service and health care jobs are only going to increase in demand. I would vote nursing. Absolutely nothing wrong with being a male nurse.

You guys are awesome. I'm going to talk to a counselor on Friday and see what they think as well.

The drummer in my covers band is a nurse. He was an EMT for like 10 years, and then said fuck it and went to nursing school. Once he got out, he had to do a year in a crappy nursing home, now he works at UMass Medical as an ER nurse and loves it. And he makes almost as much money as I do (a network engineer with a bachelors and a bunch of Cisco certs)

As a counselor, I can say you're going down the right path by looking at the end job. Too many people pick their degrees instead of the job they want to get with the degree. They see school as the destination, not the journey that it takes to get there.

Ha. I'm all on some flowery kick, today. But really, man. You're going about this the right way.

Anyplace that's OK with tats, probably the barrier to the mgmt. job...

Bro, go for the one you're most interested in. I can't imagine anyone being happy having a career in a field they don't care about. Aaannnddd going to school for something that you're not interested in sucks. Hell, the handful of classes I have to take because they're part of the "core curriculum" of a liberal arts education ruin entire months of my life.

First thought was heir apparent to your dad. Learn the ropes for a bit before he retires than take over.

Second thought and since you're leaning towards nursing this is certainly relevant and might explain why you've gotten passed over in favour of less qualified people; your body art. It's fucking pretty and awesome, but some people strongly disagree. Some people/places will not hire you because of it. If I remember right you have ink on the back of your hands. So unless you go Michael Jackson and wear gloves indoors people will see the ink and they will judge you for it ten times over. That's something you definitely want to look into. It'd be a waste to finish your training then find people will not hire you over something simple as that. It's annoying because the people that will not hire you because of it, generally make up other reasons rather than outright saying it's the body art.

Haki wrote:First thought was heir apparent to your dad. Learn the ropes for a bit before he retires than take over.

Second thought and since you're leaning towards nursing this is certainly relevant and might explain why you've gotten passed over in favour of less qualified people; your body art. It's fucking pretty and awesome, but some people strongly disagree. Some people/places will not hire you because of it. If I remember right you have ink on the back of your hands. So unless you go Michael Jackson and wear gloves indoors people will see the ink and they will judge you for it ten times over. That's something you definitely want to look into. It'd be a waste to finish your training then find people will not hire you over something simple as that. It's annoying because the people that will not hire you because of it, generally make up other reasons rather than outright saying it's the body art.

Yes, yes, yes and move outta Kansas...

Elec. Engineering/Technology. There is no shortage of jobs for electronics professionals. At my school I have a lot of opportunities to talk to industry, and it always blows my mind what I can do with my education. But that doesn't necessarily mean you'll find a job you will like. But you will find a job. Everything uses electricity.

I dig business so I chose to major in accounting, pretty easy to get a job in but I have two years left so we will see how everything pans out. But yeah at least in my school I think accounting majors have a very high placement with starting salaries averaging 50-60k.

I'll always recommend accounting because every single college grad should at least take a basic accounting course, would probably improve a lot of peoples lives at least financially. Yeah it's boring but it's useful.

I think IT and Engineering are also very good choices as well though.

That sucks that the personal training didn't work out for you man Here in Western Australia, there's a huge demand for them.