A career is about skill mastery. Pick something valuable, that you enjoy or can tolerate, and just keep practicing at it. If you’re smart enough to go to an engineering school that’s the right track. Otherwise welder, electrician, plumber, tree trimmer, lineman, whatever. Just master the skill. Don’t do the bare minimum to get a paycheck. Master. The. Skill.
A career is also about building and maintaining professional relationships. Keep in touch with former colleagues. Avoid burning bridges. Carefully choose which hills to die on.
Also there is no shame in trades. I’ve met far too many engineers who became product managers because engineering is boring. Only software developers actually work “with their hands”. They just also do the engineering part before that. You might be really into soldering or building stuff for your garden or 3D printing your own cad designs but somebody else will do the actual building part. You’ll not create something start to finish. And if that’s what you’re into, you’ll probably be more successful at a trade with the knowledge that an engineer has (at least partially) than an engineer who wished he could actually get dirty.
At least in Germany trades offer an extensive educational track where you can further develop your skills and actually have the paper that says that you are more than blue color physical labor. If you look around here in my area at suburbs, a lot of the properties have while vans in front of it. A self employed electrician (for example) can be incredibly successful financially.
A career is about skill mastery. Pick something valuable, that you enjoy or can tolerate, and just keep practicing at it. If you’re smart enough to go to an engineering school that’s the right track. Otherwise welder, electrician, plumber, tree trimmer, lineman, whatever. Just master the skill. Don’t do the bare minimum to get a paycheck. Master. The. Skill.
A career is also about building and maintaining professional relationships. Keep in touch with former colleagues. Avoid burning bridges. Carefully choose which hills to die on.
Also there is no shame in trades. I’ve met far too many engineers who became product managers because engineering is boring. Only software developers actually work “with their hands”. They just also do the engineering part before that. You might be really into soldering or building stuff for your garden or 3D printing your own cad designs but somebody else will do the actual building part. You’ll not create something start to finish. And if that’s what you’re into, you’ll probably be more successful at a trade with the knowledge that an engineer has (at least partially) than an engineer who wished he could actually get dirty.
At least in Germany trades offer an extensive educational track where you can further develop your skills and actually have the paper that says that you are more than blue color physical labor. If you look around here in my area at suburbs, a lot of the properties have while vans in front of it. A self employed electrician (for example) can be incredibly successful financially.