My son is home for the summer after his first year as an engineering major. My husband is an electrician and my son has been a licensed apprentice under him since his freshman year in high school. He is very skilled now and at the very least he has something to fall back on and can save money in the future fixing his own electrical issues. Any dad with handy skills needs to pass those on to the next generation.
Good advice and gauging your child to help facilitate a proper path is wise. I am a 4th generation union masonry contractor . I went to college. What I use in everyday operations, my college experience had little to do with. The math I put to use was learned In high school as well as the schmoozing persona I developed through sports and just loving being around people. The biggest asset I can teach my 5 year old today is how important people are and to interact and feel their heartbeats so to speak. This is the future for a world who wants to operate behind a screen and through text.
I've done both.... I'm a qualified carpenter and a university graduate... life on the tools was FAR more rewarding and the least stressful time of my adulthood...
I hope my son will get the chance to experience it even if he opts for something else eventually
If I had a son that was not very intellectually gifted, I would have encouraged him to a trade. Instead, I have a daughter, off to college in September. NJ public college: $35,000 for the year, but turns out she will go to Trinity Dubin for closer to $60K. I'd been hoping the overpriced ponzi college scheme would have crashed by now, but alas.
May I recommend she look into joining the Air National Guard out of McGuire or Atlantic City. For 1 weekend a month she gets ~$200 and all tuition to any NJ state school covered up to a masters! Lots of enlisted doing this then attending Rugters full time
I've been installing Microsoft Dynamics 365 with ChatGPT sitting copilot. If you know anything about ERP's, you know there are boojillion cryptically named fields expecting your input on each input form until you get the system going. I march through each form as if I know what I'm doing. In the late 1990's, "Extreme Programming..." was a thing where two people would program together: one would run the documentation while the other ran the editor:compiler IDE.
I can tell you for absolutely certain, that $250/hour technical consultants (legal, IT, marketing, etc) are in for a rude awakening. I feel like I have 40 consultants specializing in accounting, manufacturing, logistics, and legal sitting at my elbow.
If you aren't learning AI prompt engineering, you better buy a rocking chair now. Plumbers will always be needed on party weekends!!!.
My son is home for the summer after his first year as an engineering major. My husband is an electrician and my son has been a licensed apprentice under him since his freshman year in high school. He is very skilled now and at the very least he has something to fall back on and can save money in the future fixing his own electrical issues. Any dad with handy skills needs to pass those on to the next generation.
Good advice and gauging your child to help facilitate a proper path is wise. I am a 4th generation union masonry contractor . I went to college. What I use in everyday operations, my college experience had little to do with. The math I put to use was learned In high school as well as the schmoozing persona I developed through sports and just loving being around people. The biggest asset I can teach my 5 year old today is how important people are and to interact and feel their heartbeats so to speak. This is the future for a world who wants to operate behind a screen and through text.
Gorilla Mindset: Live life on your own terms. The eternal theme.
I've done both.... I'm a qualified carpenter and a university graduate... life on the tools was FAR more rewarding and the least stressful time of my adulthood...
I hope my son will get the chance to experience it even if he opts for something else eventually
Great piece, Mike. You’ve really captured a lot of important insights here.
If I had a son that was not very intellectually gifted, I would have encouraged him to a trade. Instead, I have a daughter, off to college in September. NJ public college: $35,000 for the year, but turns out she will go to Trinity Dubin for closer to $60K. I'd been hoping the overpriced ponzi college scheme would have crashed by now, but alas.
May I recommend she look into joining the Air National Guard out of McGuire or Atlantic City. For 1 weekend a month she gets ~$200 and all tuition to any NJ state school covered up to a masters! Lots of enlisted doing this then attending Rugters full time
I've been installing Microsoft Dynamics 365 with ChatGPT sitting copilot. If you know anything about ERP's, you know there are boojillion cryptically named fields expecting your input on each input form until you get the system going. I march through each form as if I know what I'm doing. In the late 1990's, "Extreme Programming..." was a thing where two people would program together: one would run the documentation while the other ran the editor:compiler IDE.
I can tell you for absolutely certain, that $250/hour technical consultants (legal, IT, marketing, etc) are in for a rude awakening. I feel like I have 40 consultants specializing in accounting, manufacturing, logistics, and legal sitting at my elbow.
If you aren't learning AI prompt engineering, you better buy a rocking chair now. Plumbers will always be needed on party weekends!!!.