The $100K jobs no one wants

[bearishgurl]

[quote=flyer]And more food for thought regarding college. . .

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/11/19/middle-class-parents-are-losing-their-faith-in-college-education/
[/quote]

….Of course, much of college graduates’ success depends on what area of study they pursue.

“The return on the college investment is driven by the institution a student attends, the degree they earn, and their field of study,” Mark Schneider of the American Institute for Research told Business Insider. “As college has become a mass product, there are a lot more students attending schools with lower [returns on investment].”

The five lowest-paying majors are nearly all in the social service sector, while computer sciences and engineering programs continue to churn out high-paid workers. A recent PayScale study listed the median mid-career pay for a Petroleum Engineering major at $163,000 and the median mid-career pay for a Social Work major at just $45,300.

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-college-majors-for-high-salaries-2012-11#1-petroleum-engineering-10

Duh….that lake in the background of the picture in the link above looks VERY familiar 😉

Which brings me back to:

http://www.ou.edu/content/mcee/schools.html

Some of these HS and college-age kids have been watching wa-a-a-ay too much “reality TV.” With pie-in-the-sky ideas about working in “glamorous” careers dressed in designer clothes, they need to shake off this mindset and go for the MONEY!

I got all duded up every morning to go to work in several high-rises with views of SD Bay in my lengthy “career.” That and 15 cents got me a cup of black coffee every morning and a very small pension.

Life can be short. To advise the younger Gen Y’s (males AND females), I vote to put your hard hat on, make plenty of money and take plenty of vacations to Cancun, the Bahamas, Aspen, etc, etc. All that dirt and dust from the field washes off … every night! Short of being a “celebrity” with regular “red carpet” duties, that’s about as “glamorous” as life gets. If you spend your time and money in college on a “soft” major so you can stay clean and “push buttons” all day, you may eventually be replaced by a worker in China, India or Eastern Europe.

Don’t think you’ll like living in “flyover country?” Join a frequent flyer program to get your Cali fix several times per year. Instead of paying MR thru the nose and forever lamenting about being “overtaxed” in the Golden State, you and your family will be able stay here:

http://www.lodgetorreypines.com/

. . . or here!

The Lodge at Pebble Beach

Who do you think these hotels’ most “regular” patrons are?

Hint: it’s not the “locals” ;=)

[spdrun]

What’s wrong with doing blue-collar work in a place that you actually ENJOY living in? Oilfield jobs aren’t the only blue-collar jobs that pay — start as a journeyman plumber or electrician, save money, and start your own business by 32 or so. Added benefit: ability to meet and converse with a lot of frustrated 30 or 40-something homeowners of the female persuasion 😉

Speaking for myself, vacationing in NYC once a year would be a piss-poor substitute for actually living there! (and vacationing in other beautiful places)

[Diego Mamani]

[quote=Bitter Renter]Perhaps I could contribute a unique perspective on this topic. I dropped out of college and worked at a few refineries in NorCal in the 90’s as a union laborer. All the older workers (in their 50’s) told me to go back to college…that even though I was making $40K+, it wasn’t worth it. As union carpenters/iron workers they were pulling in over $50K at the time plus full pensions (brand new 2000 sq ft homes in the area at the time were selling for ~$180K). These guys looked like they were in their 60’s so I considered the cost/benefit analysis and realized that I should listen to them. So I did, and obtained a Bachelors in Chemistry, then a Masters. Now, 20 years later I am finally making what they made then. So, I ask what did I do wrong? I believe I should have stayed as a blue collar worker (and wore sunblock). Indeed, I would be in a much more financially stable position now.[/quote]

Thank you for sharing B.R.! Interesting story. Is your advanced degree in chemistry too? I think, that in your case, if money was the primary consideration, you should have gone into engineering, or moved onto an MBA by a top 15 business school. OTOH, if you really love chemistry, then you won, you are doing what you like, and will likely live decades longer than the suck…, er, than the fine gentlemen who breathed refinery fumes and had too much exposure to the sun.

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=spdrun]
The pay is good, but can they live with themselves considering that they’re making a nice contribution to environmental destruction?

[/quote]

Have you considered that CO2 emissions in the USA is now at their 20 -year low because of all the natural gas generated by Fracking which is forcing coal plants to shut down?

Ever heard the expression – ” Don’t make the best the enemy of the good” ?

[Diego Mamani]

To follow up on Bitter Renter’s story, a relative of mine went to college in the late 40s and graduated with a degree in chemistry. As he was completing his B.S., he realized that chemistry is not the most lucrative major out there… so he stayed in school and completed the requirements for a B.S. in chemical engineering. So he got the the two degrees about a year apart.

Years later he completed a diploma on air pollution and public health at Harvard. After years in the air pollution field, he ended up in academia, where he lectured statistics to medical students, while pursuing a career in university administration. He retired as university vice president. He’s 86 today, and looks younger than most people in their 70s.

[spdrun]

Have you considered that CO2 emissions in the USA is now at their 20 -year low because of all the natural gas generated by Fracking which is forcing coal plants to shut down?

Burning “fossil farts” still produces CO2. Plus supplies are limited.

Thorium cycle nuclear and renewables are the correct answer for the long term. It’s really fucking retardedly stupid not to utilize the 100W per square foot of energy that’s basically given us for free. Yeah, conversion losses, daylight hours, and cloud cover. But even 10W per sf on a 1500 sf roof isn’t trivial.

[Diego Mamani]

[quote=bearishgurl][quote=flu]don’t believe everything what the MSM posts about $100k jobs…[/quote]

Oh, I don’t think these jobs pay $100K straight out of school. But I believe many of them pay $55-80K straight out of school WITH full benefits and generous leave pkgs. And I believe a new hire can work their way up to a $100K annual salary in 3-5 yrs if they are truly motivated and know their stuff.
[/quote]
About five years ago, my local mini-newspaper run a story about local high school students visiting people working in the trades. They visited the BMW stealership, where they met master technicians earning $80K a year. So, I tend to agree with BG.

[spdrun]

Is “master tech” the end of the mechanic promotion line before going to management? If so, $80k isn’t that much if you think about it.

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=spdrun]

Have you considered that CO2 emissions in the USA is now at their 20 -year low because of all the natural gas generated by Fracking which is forcing coal plants to shut down?

Burning “fossil farts” still produces CO2. Plus supplies are limited.

Thorium cycle nuclear and renewables are the correct answer for the long term. It’s really fucking retardedly stupid not to utilize the 100W per square foot of energy that’s basically given us for free. Yeah, conversion losses, daylight hours, and cloud cover. But even 10W per sf on a 1500 sf roof isn’t trivial.[/quote]

I see that I did not get my point of making best the enemy of good across.

The problem with your post above is that you trivialized so many things that I wonder who really fvcking retardedly stupid is …

(a) You conveniently ignored that no one has made thorium cycle nuclear reactor or no one is likely to make one in coming decade. No one with any credibility has proven that it will be economical. Why didn’t you just say fusion reactor instead. And by the way after buliding nuclear plant for 60 years we still do not know how to reliably dispose off hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste that keeps on piling all over this country and the world.

(b) You forgot to mention cost of solar energy, account for energy needed to make solar panels which barely last for 20 years, the fact that efficieny of those barely approaches 15-20%, the fact that we need to spend hundreds of billions to upgrade the grid and build storage if everyone decides to put a panel on their rooftop, the fact that there are areas in most of the world where energy density is too low etc.

My point is – After 50 to 100 years we will have the “best” option of renewables and fusion reactor. But there is no realistic way that is happening before then on a large scale. However we still need to cut our CO2 emissions urgently before we reached that promised land of renewables without reverting back to stone age. Natural Gas derived from fracking ( coupled with energy efficiency improvements) can be that bridge to the promised land.

If you really care for climate change, you would embrace fracking and regulate/fix it for real issues with it – which are excessive water use, potential groundwater contamination, methane release and potential earthquake concerns. Those are real and serious issues but they can be fixed.

If you only want to feel good for being virtuous without really making any difference in the world then you will oppose fracking on the grounds that it produces fossil fuels and all we should do is renewables. In that world, we will keep burning coal and it will take 50 years for renewables to come online anyway.

[spdrun]

(1) High-level and medium-level waste from fission? Reprocess and glassify/bury what remains. Works fine for the French — they’re not as cowardly as prissy little Dumberican NIMBYs about such things.
(2) Solar panels aren’t the only way to extract energy from the Sun. Solar-thermal plants in the desert combined with pumped-hydro storage are another option. As far as upgrading the grid, that’s a problem. But if we spent half as much on that as we did supporting our military-industrial parasites, we’d get it done inside of a decade.

I’d love to see a Manhattan-project level race to change the energy infrastructure of this country to the BEST and CLEANEST in the world inside of 20 years. And yes, when we do something “good”, the rest of the world tends to follow eventually.

[Diego Mamani]

[quote=spdrun]Is “master tech” the end of the mechanic promotion line before going to management? If so, $80k isn’t that much if you think about it.[/quote]
Huh? Mechanics are not in the management track. And yes, I think it’s obvious that $80k or $100K for a skilled mechanic, while realistic, is not an entry-level salary.

[spdrun]

In the shops I know, mechanics do get promoted to foreman/shop manager eventually.

[all]

A friend of mine is a trucker. He used to spend weekends at home and go coast to coast during the week. He now spends one week at home then three weeks on the road. He has a wife and two daughters.

Another guy I know came here with his wife and two sons about 10 years ago. The wife and the kids went back to their home country after few years. He spends 8-9 months trucking in the US (lives in the truck) and 3-4 months with his family.

A cousin of mine has been working on oil drills (Middle East, Africa, Northern Sea) for almost 30 years. 2 months at home, 2 months in the field since more than 20 years ago. They have one kid. They wanted to have more but he lost fertility along the way.

[spdrun]

Lost fertility? Chemical exposure? ‘ya think?

[flyer]

Going forward, regardless of what jobs they take, it will be very interesting to see the stats on what percentage of young people make enough money to support themselves–especially those who were raised in CA–and aspire to continue the lifestyle their parents have provided.

As I mentioned before–my kids were lucky–but, from what we’ve seen and heard from friends–it’s not a pretty picture out there for kids trying to make the “big bucks,” AND live where they want to live.

[Author]

Posts