Anyone have regrets about having gone full-time?

rockhillmanor wrote:

Wow. Here's a news flash for you'all. College certainly doesn't guarantee you anything anymore. The majority of students do NOT get a job in the area they studied or even get a job period. They have so much debt when they graduate. Not to mention going to college to become a teacher? Teachers make below middle income wages. :( The money is and always has been is in the trades. With out the trades the world doesn't turn.

Don't know where "facts" come from? Looks to me like 60% or so are employed in their fields shortly after graduation. My son graduated as an engineer in May, and had to abandon his internship in March, since an employer couldn't wait the ten weeks until graduation to get him into a supervisory position. Great starting salary and a new 4WD F-150 after 90 days. As for so much debt, it averages $26K per grad, or less than they will waste on their first new car. Teaching in this area is currently tough to get into, but starting salaries are close to 50K and climb pretty quickly in the first few years. The trades however are a joke. Great career if you like being unemployed, and wonder how you are ever going to retire. Way too many in the field, and big employers have done a great job of destroying pay and conditions by hiring illegals and unqualified, low cost "helpers". I can't even count the number of fresh faced young kids I have seen in the last decade that started apprenticeships in the trades, only to find out that there is a whole lot of work for underpaid apprentice grade help, and no real chance of working 50% of the year once you "top out". Most end up in careers that are more reliable, and can actually support a family. Yes, before you tell me I haven't got a clue, I have worked the trades and done commercial and institution project management in the past. I saw the writing on the wall in the mid-2000s and left. Best move I ever made.
Obviously, regional differences can be stark, but I would be far more comfortable if one of my kids was 23 Y.0 with a teaching certificate, $26K in debt and a future, rather than being the same age and just starting an apprenticeship with the carpenter's local.