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I'm a non-degreed Engineer. I could not hack the math at the college level. I was not ready for it, but I could do it now. Ironically I now work at the university where I didn't make it, supporting graduate research and teaching of engineering students. They recruited me. But only on a "soft money" basis at first, which means you only have a job for the duration of the research grant awarded to a professor.
I went off and did straight A's in a pretty much useless degree in education with teaching fields of history/geography/political science. I had to switch to another university to clear the bad grades from Calculus, even though I had good grades in Chem and Physics. Having that on the paper confuses HR to no end.
It took ten years working at the university, followed by four years in four different contract jobs in private industry, followed by three more years at the university to become a Senior Technician, and be awarded permanent status.
Only once in my career has my business card read "Engineer", and a corporation can award that status in my State if the work involved is not concerned with safety of life.
LISTEN UP. Don't quit. I make 1/3rd of what my entry level Doctoral level colleagues do. I make 30,000$ less then my contemporary EE colleagues make. Getting a good paying job with a career track took a decade and a half of climbing the ladder.
Trust me, getting past the "Ladies Who Lunch' in HR, is extremely difficult in a bad economy. It's WORSE when the economy is good. Bouncing from job to job on one year contracts for ten years was a BITCH.
You
WILL be asked you for a college transcript here, for the rest of your life.
I've done consulting work in the past both independently, and via the university for major defense contractors.
Some of them have started the process to hire me away from my present employer. I always hit a snag when their HR people find out I do not have a Masters in EE. Which is usually a corporate policy for long term design employment in Defense. Once in a while I've even been "Loaned" to a National Lab..
Once a month I have dinner with a mix of about thirty EEs, EE small business owners, and NDEs. There are many NDEs that have a skill that is amazing, in terms of RF, Computing, Math, whatever. At any give time four or five so of them will be unemployed. They suffer, and the EEs often buy them a drink or two, or three...
We spend much of our time at dinner, trying to help them find jobs where their skill set and experience matches a need. As they get a year contract, they typically solve a serious problem at their contract employer, and are then passed over for permanence. Even with a well connected team of us trying to help them, they struggle, and struggle often.
Some of these gents have tech skill sets that would make them a mid level manager, if they only had that piece of paper......
If you want a Bride, If you Want a House, DON'T DO IT. You will experience being used and tossed, used and tossed, and then after at least a decade of struggle, you might get lucky and snag a half decent job.
I'm working on a Masters in the evenings. Not because I want or need another piece of parchment. In fact my degree just rehashes the same old College of Education materials that I did as a undergrad. However the 4.0 GPA and the paper work is simply to have it on the resume for the next round of job hunting.
A basic, non technical, Masters is 500-600$ a credit hour in the US, and you will need 32 to 40 credits plus a semester off work to get an evenings and weekend MBA or similar. That is 24,000$ you will have to spend a few years from now, for dropping out today.
I'm getting the Masters at 3-4 credit hours a semester. My employer "pays" for it, but I'm paying the taxes on it, which are steep!
It is not just out of bitterness that I write this, I am trying to WARN you that the days of a twenty year career in technology for some one without a degree or military service plus completion of a two year degree while in the military, are over in the US.
I dont give a damn how much you hate the classroom. Guess what, you can do it now, or you can go back later when it is much more difficult to learn while working a full time job. Pick one or the other, or be poor.
One of the reasons the College keeps me around, is when some students struggle and want to quit, guess who is asked to grant an audience? Usually explaining what my duties were on the day of the meeting, taking them to see what cool hardware I'm working on, plus whipping out a pay slip, will result in a full grade letter increase for the struggling student. If they want to listen.
I take care of the technology needs of 22 Professors, 330 Undergrads, and 127 grad students. That is the same work load of a MD in family practice. Care to guess what I make compared to my GP??
I had one nice year as a Field Service Engineer, at ~70K after benefits. However that involved living out of a suitcase for up to 90 days at a time. Flying that often has some strange effects on your mind and body.
FSE is a great way to be alone, and even if you look like an Adonis, you will not have any feminine company on the road, unless you run into a really stressed sales gal looking for a little warmth.( Odds of that are 40,000 to 1 against) Your wife will have little use for you when you get home.
If you want to cap your pay to 32,000 to 45,000$ maximum for the rest of your life, often without health benefits, please feel free to quit. The first time you hit medical debt in the US, you will probably cry when you get a 20,000 Dollar medical bill to pay off.
DON'T QUIT.
Steve NDE, B. Edu,
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