The downside to that is it is much harder to continue working as you age depending on the trade. Usually the "best" route there is to start early, learn what you can, and go independent eventually hiring other people to do the hard stuff you no longer can do.

Also need to be careful specializing.... I went super specific and well... Yeah... Ice cream refrigeration machines aren't exactly ubiquitous. I should have stuck with residential HVAC but I hated crawling under houses and being on call all night :/

I currently work in a factory (yeah I'm just chock full of bad decisions) and I can say from what I've gathered from my coworkers being a "machinist" isn't so much of a viable trade anymore. Everyone pays like shit now.

I've heard there's an enormous demand for experienced tradespeople, but apprenticeships are pretty much full up...

Kind of a nobody-wins situation. Money to be made, just not by anyone on the ground floor.

I haven't met any parents telling their kids to go into the trades aside from one dad who is already in the trades and knows the life.

Most of the parents of high/middle schoolers I speak to are pushing STEM and entrepreneurship. I coach this age group, and the parents still want their kid to go on to higher education. They just are more aggressive about it being a meaningful degree.

There is also more discussion of the cost of schools. A degree from a local school with in state tuition or a community college transfer is looked upon more favorably now. Frankly, a lot of the elite schools are bullshit and the general public is waking up to that now. The work a student is willing to put into learning is much more important than if the school has a high rank.

John Deere and a few others recently paid like 20m to build a diesel tech training center for my university that includes several large vehicle bays and a fuel development lab, with the expectation the students would work for their companies after graduation. It's starting to look like these kids will be opening their own businesses and ending the cycle of ripping off farmers in the community.

As a former mechanic with lots of lovely health issues before even hitting 40, I really hope they do work for themselves so they can get out of the grunt work when they are my age and still earn from their experience

If Trump gets elected, and he mass deports millions of people, there will be a surge in construction demand.

I'm in IT. It's the advice I wish I'd followed from the beginning.

Once you get comfortable in your job and it becomes routine, you need to find a new one. Keep growing your skill set, and probably take a hefty raise each time.

Don't worry about being a job hopper - it resolves itself easily enough when you don't find the next position for a while.

Just be careful when you do, because there's a risk of screwing up your retirement savings. Losing employer contributions that could have kicked in if you held out another 6 months or whatever. (I'm not an expert on this subject by the way, and ymmv)

If it weren't for networking I would have never gone from being a line cook that barely graduated highschool to a CAD tech for a land surveying company. Had literally zero experience and was definitely not what I thought I'd be doing in five years when I was working the closing shift at restaurants every night until 2:00 AM.

In my experience, this highly depends on the college. Mine really didn't do shit for me as far as networking goes. And what connections i did make didn't end up helping anyway. Maybe it starts mattering more once you've got some experience?

This is essential. Speaking from experience as a guy with bad mental problems who can't do relationships. Work on that, kids!

Yeah. The tech industry is imploding as it switches from development to maintenance.

Physical therapists, nurses and people that went into trades I can see making good money, but social workers I am kind of surprised to hear. I thought those were for the most part not paid as well compared to how taxing their jobs can be.

I gave up my initial plan of becoming an ecologist and went into IT for job security. And now I’m about to be laid off cause the company I work for is close to going under, for the third time.

Sorry to hear

Is this a thing people say unironically? It's as dumb as saying "just go be a movie star"

I hear this from some of the kids that I coach. I remind them that they have to do something worth watching. I know that some lucky content creators make money with low effort posts, but in a world where everyone wants views, you need to be good enough at something to catch peoples attention.

OF is a lottery for pretty girls or for people in very niche communities.

Like if your thing is wearing girly socks and mushing Jello between your toes, you could probably make some money on onlyfans but just being a generic 6.5 out of 10 or better looking? No chance in hell.

The world has been changing fast and I think the safest advice in terms of always having work is to learn something to do with bedrock infrastructure, like plumbing or welding.