With regard to student debt, there are so many issues. One of the largest among them is that throughout most people’s entire education, they are never taught how to properly optimize paying off a debt. No offense to anyone here struggling with these decades long debts themselves, but it is a failure of the system (or, arguably by design) that you suffer so long from them. Yes, you can improve your spending habits and such. But it should be part of the standard curriculum to learn how to better structure your debts, pay taxes and so on.
Up through high school I learned what I was good at and gained an insight into what I was passionate about. In the process of getting my degree I figured out with certainty what I was passionate about. At no point in the 16 years since earning my degree has that passion resulted in me making a single dollar or benefited me in a real world scenario. If I pursued my passion, it would take me years of education and then probably years of climbing the ladder along with luck to reach the pinnacle salary of that profession. Which would be about how much money I was making in 2007 at age 21. At no point during my K-12+4 years of college did I learn a single skill that prepared me for the real world whether that be interacting with people on a professional level, doing any sort of labor with my hands, paying any sort of monthly or yearly thing like every single adult does, opening a bank account, setting myself up for the future with a Roth IRA, investing money on my own or through a financial advisor and so forth. The entire education system is imo very, very broken. I don’t want kids, but if I did, I’d encourage them to take shop in high school, some city college accounting classes and learn how to become a great electrician or plumber. The cost of doing so is significantly lower, the barrier to entry is significantly lower and yet there is the constant need for their service. The “traditional” college route should stop being thought of as traditional, because it’s very wrong for a lot of people and it stopped being something that was guaranteed to lead you down a successful career path a very long time ago.
It seems like this was a rite of passage in college, lol, I had a plasma gold card because I was such a frequent donor.
I do understand what you are saying and another thing to look at is, if everyone goes to college, it lessens the value of having a degree, which I think it already has to a certain extent, a college degree today is more like a high school degree when my grandparents were of that age. It’s a tricky and a hard subject to approach really. My hope is not to go down the political rabbit hole though, haha. Politics ruins everything fun.
I have a strong desire to die on this hill of the current education system is broken and designed to make the populace overall dumber and poorer in the US, but I’ll stop myself before I start dragging personal politics and beliefs deeper into this thread.
probably best to go back to talking about what we do for a living and back off from the discourse that is college debt. Because even with my levelheaded nature I had to re write this three times to ensure I didn’t outright start a fight here.
I think they should teach more real life skills in high school as well, how to manage your money, how to invest, tehcnical skills, etc etc. You spend so much time learning nonsense that you will never use in the real world. My dad always encouraged me to go to trade school and learn a good trade, especially after I dropped out of high school. I disagreed with him at the time, I do not disagree with him now. Though, I think it may be just as easy to go land a job at a construction site, they will always hire young folks that are willing to work hard and if you stay on with the right people you can build up your skills in whatever trade interests you. I did this with a master plumber for awhile just before I made the mistake of going to college, I got my GED when I dropped out of high school at 17 so that I had options, I was a punk but I wasn’t stupid… well, I wasn’t that stupid. I could have earned really good money if I stuck with plumbing at such a young age too. Instead, I dropped out of college and got stuck in the postal service, which no offense to anyone, it’s a good job but I just couldn’t do that for the rest of my life, especially in the Texas heat. Getting out of the postal service was hard, you don’t learn any skills that you can use outside of other delivery companies, so a lot of people get trapped in that very narrow industry. I just made the leap of faith and crashed HARD for several years, which was what eventually led me down the path I’m on now, so no real regrets, everything happens for a reason… the older I get the more I truly believe that… I mean I do have regrets but I’m not going to share them here!
We are likely very much on the same page with our thoughts. And agreed on the latter part.
As far as careers. There’s some I’ve considered but never pursued. Back in 2013 or so I had considered starting a YouTube fishing channel since there were some young kids doing it that were starting to pick up some steam in the midwest and east coast regions, while Socal was largely unrepresented. However my career was picking up significant steam again for the first time in a couple years and the money I was constantly investing from that was performing exceptionally well and I didn’t really imagine there could be a high ceiling for fishing content on the internet, so I pretty quickly lost interest in the idea.
Since then, those young kids have built individual platforms and/or teamed up amongst each other and with other significant brands, created their own brands, become adults, gained well over a million subs and made significant sums of money and it’s all a really remarkable thing to have watched since basically the beginning. The reality is that watching kids do it growing up from 15ish-whatever doing it and watching me 27-38 (I just look more grumpy and grey) are very different, in the early stages they clearly had more passion for it as fishing was like this amazing brand new fresh thing for them where despite it being one of my life’s passions, still something I’d been doing for significantly longer than they’d been alive, and with 0 guarantee of any success of my own. And the fishing scene on the midwest and east coast is very different and less competitive and there are spots all over that are rarely fished. If you out an even remotely unknown spot or currently hot spot in Socal, that’s about grounds for execution when it comes to freshwater fishing, so there would have been a significant social barrier for me when it even came to creating content. Which I think explains why to this day plays some part in why there aren’t any very successful Socal fishing channels on YouTube despite it now being proven that it can be very lucrative.
I’m just a Tig welder. Learned to weld so i could build my cars without paying other people. Lol which almost instantly turned into me building/ modifying other peoples cars, which is my side gig. 7 years deep now. Crazy. Stance.Shack is the name of my business. Mostly modify suspension parts to lower hondas way too much and turbo setups. Haven’t made a turbo manifold from scratch yet, but full turbo back exhausts, chargepipes and all that other fab work that goes into a turbo setup. I do i all that stuff. Cast/ forged steel spindles, lower and upper control arms, modifying those for stance cars is my bread and butter.
For my day job, i work in a general fab shop, Tig welding still. We build a huge amount of things so it’s easier just to say “everything” lol but it’s true. Stainless doors for shark tanks to parking lot ticket machine boxes to tiny little thingys that i don’t even know what they do, i just stick them together. Lol
I love it because it requires a skill that you loose if you don’t keep at it. But i’m also good at it so i can just turn my brain off and go. Plus i get to work by myself. I hate working as a team so this job is real nice for me.
Thants awesome. I really enjoy welding even though I don’t do it a lot. I’m fairly proficient at SMAW and have dabbled in Mig a bit. Have yet to tig weld though
Started out in high school working a summer job watering the grass along the new expressway in town. Really liked the folks that I worked with so stayed with the DOT until retiring 35 years later. During those years I worked many different jobs while moving up to being a bridge design engineer. At age 52 I retired and haven’t looked back. I’m 85 now and am enjoying a good life in a retirement community in the downtown of a major city where walking out the front door finds me in the midst of many interesting people to see and things to do.
It’s a handy skill to have when you need it! I did smaw in school but after passing the test… never touched it again. Lol i’m kinda ok at mig, i really dislike doing it though. I like tig because it’s so clean and you can weld in sweats without catching fire. Lol when i worked at this aero space place, (planes and fighter jet parts we were building) i used to show up to work in my PJs, toss my headphones in and lay dimes all day long. It was glorious. Covid layoff put a sad end the that one when all the planes were grounded. Miss that job.
I have a Masters Degree in Applied Lunacy from MYOWN Institute.
I have travelled to parts of the Earth, where it is only 1 Degree.
I fry many different kinda foods at no less than least 375 Degrees(plenty of degrees right there).
As a Structural Welder, I weld many forms at both 90 degrees on the vertical and/or 0 degrees on the horizontal.
I don’t smoke, drink, do drugs, gamble or travel much…… so I sorta unintentionally save money.
I classify this upside to having few vices, ‘Discretionary Funds’.
So, technically, I am not made out of money. I just end up with more money than many of my friends that actually spend money having fun, lol😂
PS… I am very impressed with most of the replies in this thread. Seems we have some pretty darn Fart smellers… I mean pretty darn Smart fellers on this Forum.
After high school, I pursued journalism and dabbled in entertainment reporting. But at 21, I felt the urge to break free from the office routine, so I embarked on a three-year journey across the USA, taking up various jobs including a nightclub in Vegas, and ski resorts in Colorado.
At 25, I returned to university to study business and marketing. During my studies, I had the unique opportunity to assist a Quantum Physicist (who was a finalist in the Mars One Project). I managed her engagements, schedule and logistics.
Later, in Cape Town, I stumbled into modelling. I spent the next six years travelling for work and am now based in Sydney.
When COVID halted photo shoots and travel, I transitioned to working in a team at a digital agency, where I delved into Shopify websites and marketing strategies. Through hands-on practical application of my studies, I developed a deep interest in strategy, eventually rising to Head of Performance Media and Strategy at the organisation.
Now, I’m taking a sabbatical from marketing to explore Product Management in tech while continuing my modelling career and throwing my yo-yo along the way.
I just realized I never fully answered the question. While I do have a profession, I also have 4 kids. Basically, I do not afford yo-yos. I only receive them as gifts.
The only two throws I’ve purchased were my first, a Magicyoyo V3, and a Butterfly XT for Modern Responsive March The rest were all gifts.
I could have earned really good money if I stuck with plumbing at such a young age too. Instead, I dropped out of college and got stuck in the postal service, which no offense to anyone, it’s a good job but I just couldn’t do that for the rest of my life, especially in the Texas heat. Getting out of the postal service was hard, you don’t learn any skills that you can use outside of other delivery companies, so a lot of people get trapped in that very narrow industry. I just made the leap of faith and crashed HARD for several years, which was what eventually led me down the path I’m on now, so no real regrets, everything happens for a reason… the older I get the more I truly believe that… I mean I do have regrets but I’m not going to share them here! 
The rest were all gifts.