# Career advice EE schooling vs electrician apprentice



## firegreencurry (Oct 29, 2018)

I'm not sure if this is the right place/forum to ask this, but I'll go ahead anyway.

I'm 29 years old and have a math degree. It hasn't helped me get into the kind of work I enjoy. I have some experience teaching and tutoring, but the pay/work isn't for me. I have 2 kids and have a dilemma.

Option 1 is continue working at the port where I live and make 17-23 an hour doing backbreaking hard work (unloading ships and train cars that usually contain 110 pound sacks of rice/beans/flour) and eventually save up enough money to go back to school and finish an electrical engineering degree. The port job is irregular, pays decent, but won't lead to anything. It would be a means to an end and allow me to live at home with my family and near my parents.

Option 2 is move 3 hours away (by myself initially, leaving my family) to New Orleans and start as an apprentice electrician. I tried joining my local but got the runaround for about a year and I don't think I'm going to be accepted anytime soon. I recently discovered my best friend's brother in law is a master electrician who has a high position running commercial projects and specializes in LV. He would be able to get me started as an apprentice making about 12/hr and 21 after about six months. He'd train me himself and can guarantee me a job if I push the button and accept.

Both options involve some initial sacrifice and I'm really unsure which option to pick. I wasn't the most school motivated person, but as an EE I wouldn't have to take any of the math classes and would immediately start engineering. Of course, that would be two years approximately before I could graduate. Moving would give me a more stable career option, but I don't know if I would enjoy the work and if it's worth the sacrifice of leaving my family while I obtain a stable living situation. (I can live with my sister in New Orleans for at least 6 months).

Any advice would be appreciated.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

I think you should do what you want to do for the next 30 or 40 years. An electrical engineer is extremely different than an electrician. Only you can answer which one you want to be.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

When people ask me for advice on relationships or investing, I say I don't give advice on relationships or investing. You need to make that decision for yourself.


Your question is right up there along similar lines. The decisions you make will impact you and your family forever. We only know what you typed. You know that plus everything else.


I'm confused as to why someone with a B.S.Mathematics is working humping 100 lb sacks of beans. Many employers would love to have you on their team and the employment market is better than it ever has been in this country. Why not at least be some administrator at the bean sack humping place if you're constrained geographically?


Whatever you do, I wish you well, and I mean that very sincerely. Sometimes it's tough to weigh all the pros and cons, risks and rewards, and have confidence in your decision. Godspeed to you and your family.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

Hard work for low wages isn't that hard to come by, so I wouldn't worry too much about leaving the loading docks, you could always come back. 

It won't take long to decide if you like the low voltage work. Separation from you family can be high price to pay. Time is one thing you never get back, especially with wives and kids. 

I'd think if you want to go to school to be an EE it's going to take a long, long time to save up enough working on the loading dock. Keep turning over rocks, keep looking for something better even if you stay there. 

As mentioned above, being an EE is nothing like being an electrician. There's all different kinds of electrician work, and there's all different kinds of EE work too. 

Unfortunately while you can do a little digging and find what a day at a job entails, you can't tell if you are going to like it until you walk a mile in the shoes. 

Some of the best advice I ever got: usually the harder a decision is, the less important it is. 

(That might sound like ridiculous advice at first, think a little...)


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## John Valdes (May 17, 2007)

Why not become a CPA? You got a big jump on everyone else with a degree in math.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

John Valdes said:


> Why not become a CPA? You got a big jump on everyone else with a degree in math.


Nah, a math degree dovetails a lot more with engineering. A math degree really doesn't have much to do with becoming a CPA. 

Math isn't the hard part about accounting. Really accounting doesn't involve a whole lot of math beyond arithmetic. Accounting is more about understanding how financial information is recorded and analyzed, debits and credits, that jazz. Becoming a CPA is about passing a test about the business practices involved in public accounting, memorizing a lot of tax laws, that kind of stuff. 

On the business side, math degrees go into actuarial work for insurance companies. Actuarial work is like accounting only less action packed and fun filled.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

*C*ertified

*P*ain in the 

*A*ss


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## John Valdes (May 17, 2007)

MechanicalDVR said:


> *C*ertified
> 
> *P*ain in the
> 
> *A*ss


Yet most all of our successful business owner members here suggest a CPA.
That a good CPA is a requirement.
Why would a CPA be a pain? Seems they would keep you away from pain.
I know if I had a business, I would use a CPA.


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## Bird dog (Oct 27, 2015)

John Valdes said:


> Yet most all of our successful business owner members here suggest a CPA.
> That a good CPA is a requirement.
> Why would a CPA be a pain? Seems they would keep you away from pain.
> I know if I had a business, I would use a CPA.


IMO it boils down to record keeping. What I do is have a folder for each tax year on my computer. So, for 2018 I have a folder that has an excel spreadsheet in it with everything listed with a hyperlink to that document in the folder. At tax time I send the folder to my CPA. They love me being early & they usually don't ask for anything.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

John Valdes said:


> Yet most all of our successful business owner members here suggest a CPA.
> That a good CPA is a requirement.
> Why would a CPA be a pain? Seems they would keep you away from pain.
> I know if I had a business, I would use a CPA.


I liken them to the typical wife, always nagging about something but the good ones get the job done.

ie: a completely necessary evil

One in business needs a lawyer as well but they aren't always a pleasure to deal with either....


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## Wiresmith (Feb 9, 2013)

engineer, you can work for a firm while you go to school part time. i've never heard anything good about blue collar work down south, only bad.

unless you want to start your own company. which i get no sense that you do


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

First off it's kind of a life style choice. Generally engineers are paid more to work with their heads than their hands. This is also true of electricians but there is more hands on work and a little less head work. As far as work environment goes, you have a much greater chance of wearing a suit and tie as a work uniform as an engineer and a much greater chance of working in insulated overalls as an electrician. But there's a lot in between so don't take this as gospel.


Now some reality. Top end electricians are going to top out in today's dollars probably around $125,000. Top end engineers are going to top out in today's dollars probably around $125,000. If you run your own business you can clear more money in either position to be sure. At the bottom end you will start out a little higher as an engineer compared to an apprentice electrician but the thing is that the electrician almost starts out with little or no school while the engineer typically spends 5+ years in school making little or nothing during that time so it takes about a decade to "catch up". Most engineers start out making less than foremen but more than apprentices.


In terms of going "between jobs" it's even worse. For an engineer figure on a minimum of 2-4 weeks to land another full time "corporate" type job where electricians can land another one in about a week. That's never mind construction contractor electricians that are basically perpetually looking for a job and can land one in a day or two of pounding the pavement.


So you have to have some patience as an engineer and keep a lot more of an emergency fund for when you're between jobs. Many engineers act like such pompous holier than thou jerks and many are so petrified of getting dirty let alone the horror of actually sweating that they give you the impression that they are so loaded that manual labor is beneath their dignity. It's simply not true. The young ones that are just starting out are making less than almost everyone else on the job site that is the same age, and the older ones make about the same.


So if it's a purely financial decision, I'd recommend going the electrician route. I know this is a controversial point of view but it's true. But it depends on what you like doing too. I do like engineering but I can't stand being in the office all day. I can't understand why computer programmers don't go nuts sitting in front of a computer all day long. I like being outside and I like working with my hands. I really detest dealing with office politics and people that are clueless about how the real world works. I like working with guys that are down to earth.


Another big thing is time scales. Engineers often work on projects that last quite literally years or decades. Electricians might work on something that stretches out over a period of 6 months from start to finish but that's usually the limit of it. It's so nice to get a feeling of accomplishment every day when you can look at the job site and think "I did that" when as an engineer that might not happen for a couple years or more. You see this everywhere. As an engineer I got calls all the time on vacation as if I wasn't really even on vacation, even during nights and weekends. As a technician I rarely get those calls.


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## Martine (Jan 26, 2018)

MechanicalDVR said:


> I liken them to the typical wife, always nagging about something but the good ones get the job done.
> 
> ie: a completely necessary evil
> 
> One in business needs a lawyer as well but they aren't always a pleasure to deal with either....


Similar to the typical wife, they wouldn't be nagging if you did it right the first time :vs_laugh:


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

Martine said:


> Similar to the typical wife, they wouldn't be nagging if you did it right the first time :vs_laugh:


I said the "typical" wife, not mine she doesn't nag me as I'm perfect, just ask her.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

MechanicalDVR said:


> I said the "typical" wife, not mine she doesn't nag me as I'm perfect, just ask her.



I would have given that one more than 1 like if it would have let me!


:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## electric_novice (Nov 13, 2018)

Become an engineer and electrician.

I am registering as an apprentice and engineer in training. I will be supervised by both master electricians and professional engineers at work.

At work, we will do design or maintenance and installations.


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## Billtheref (Jul 25, 2016)

"Both options involve some initial sacrifice"
My father in law would tell me, "It's better to be at the bottom of a 12' ladder than at the top of a 6' ladder."


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

electric_novice said:


> Become an engineer and electrician.
> 
> I am registering as an apprentice and engineer in training. I will be supervised by both master electricians and professional engineers at work.
> 
> At work, we will do design or maintenance and installations.


How do you get around the independence issue? The NCEES model law makes design build almost impossible.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

paulengr said:


> How do you get around the independence issue? The NCEES model law makes design build almost impossible.
> 
> Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk



Paul is that on all work or only work above a certain threshold?


And are the states adopting it?


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

MikeFL said:


> Paul is that on all work or only work above a certain threshold?
> 
> And are the states adopting it?



Most states are adopting it. NCEES is a consortium of among other things the civil engineering group (ASCE). Their goals are to set up engineers so that they are treated legally just like lawyers and doctors..you have to go through a political system to get a license to practice engineering. The state organization sues the crap out of anyone that encroaches on their territory. For example, doing math will be illegal:



https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/08/oregon_will_let_engineer_refer_to_himself_as_engineer/


So yeah for an electrician to calculate the conduit fill or calculate ampacity and figure out the correct wire size will soon be impossible without paying an engineering firm to do it.


There isn't a dollar level or anything like that.



Never mind the fact that at the university I went to if you couldn't hack it as a full fledged engineer (mechanical, electrical, etc.) then you went into civil engineering because they had "baby" versions of calculus, chemistry, electrical, and skipped out on pretty much all the rest. The extra time was spent taking classes learning Codes like IBC. Their idea of doing engineering is to look up everything in tables that real engineers worked out and spout off codes. The rest of us are tasked with doing math for the answers and having to design stuff from scratch. Civil engineers freak out if they run into a problem where there isn't a Code or a cheat sheet table to give them an answer.



They also try to force everyone into their system. NCEES requires you to have 5 years of experience which must be while working under the license of another engineer in an engineering firm. About 80% of the things you as an engineer outside of getting paid crap sitting at a desk in an engineering firm doesn't count as "experience". The guy that comes out to help electricians troubleshoot some complicated overengineered control system in an industrial plant which was probably designed by a desk engineer that had no clue what they are doing because they never even saw the plant does NOT count as "experience". If you work in a corporate job for an industrial plant (same environment where you never need to pull a permit), even though you will probably be responsible for projects costing millions of dollars that will involve control systems that keep nasty toxic chemicals from getting released and killing a whole city or blowing up a huge refinery and wiping the city off the map, none of that counts as valid experience because it isn't "design" experience sitting in an office making coffee and supervising a bunch of draftsmen.


Right now there is just one "out". There is the "industrial exemption". The first problem with this is that it is different in every state and NCEES is trying to do whatever they can to wipe it out. If it ever gets wiped out, engineers will not be able to work in industrial plants anymore...they will all be forced to work for engineering firms.


To give you some idea how insane this is, at one time Schneider in North Carolina had application engineers. You could call them and get help doing just about anything they sell a product for. They even did arc flash studies. But at this point it is so bad that effectively there are actually questions about whether or not supplying a customer with a product data sheet counts as doing "engineering" since it contains technical data. And certainly if you called up and asked for a fuse or a circuit breaker for a certain application, this counts as engineering if they give you a recommendation compared to just giving you a link to a catalog on their web site. Schneider actually got rid of all their application engineers (found them jobs with a separate engineering firm). And a large regional construction contractor in our area purposely created an engineering firm that was separate from the parent company simply because the state doesn't really allow design-build anymore.


One of the problems at least in North Carolina as an example is that we have "Professional" engineering companies (LLC's or similar). The owners MUST be engineers. None of the owners can be non-engineers. The professional engineering company can have an engineering license and the engineers working for that company stamp drawings with the company stamp. This is big because if someone stamps a drawing with their personal stamp, they are subjected to unlimited personal liability where the engineering company can be set up with limited liability. Along with this, it is ILLEGAL for the engineering firm to do anything other than engineering work. So a design-build firm can't be a "professional" company because it can design but not build. And engineers would be nuts to work for a design-build firm which is effectively a GC or an EC because in terms of anything they do as engineers, they are personally liable, not the GC/EC.


This isn't a recent issue either. It has existed almost since licensing existed. Back in the 1850's there was a movement towards getting rid of trade guilds and licensing programs to the point where you didn't need a license even to be a doctor or a lawyer, never mind an electrical contractor. Obviously things went a little too far at that time so they created license programs to "protect the public", but mostly the "profession", as basically a form of trade guild or professional union. In terms of unions as I mentioned a bunch of the engineering societies got together and started NCEES to push for licensing. Simultaneously the rest of them got together as another group (IEEE is in this camp) to promote science and knowledge including developing standards and guidelines (Codes) to help support the rapid growth in the industrial revolution. This was the "big tent" camp that was basically open to anyone and everyone that wanted to get involved. The "industrial exemption" only came about in every state simply because the NCEES crowd by themselves couldn't get buy-in without it. So ever since those laws were passed they've been doing everything possible to get rid of it, and most recently in the last 10-20 years they've been more aggressive than ever.


Hence the reason that I questioned design-build because effectively it's only legal if the engineers involved are personally liable for the designs.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

Unless something has changed here, a PE may not sign "for the firm". He has to take personal responsibility. That's what insurance is for.


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## electric_novice (Nov 13, 2018)

A professional engineer has to stamp drawings/designs with their seal 

An electrician can’t perform engineering design work 

A professional engineer can be a master electrician to supervise the work of other electricians, but they can’t do any electrical work themselves unless unless they have the appropriate certificate or qualification 

An electrician can’t advertise electrical services to the public without a electrical contractor license


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

electric_novice said:


> A professional engineer has to stamp drawings/designs with their seal
> 
> An electrician can’t perform engineering design work
> 
> ...



The rules are different in every state and subject to interpretation in every jurisdiction.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

The OP never returned to see any replies.


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## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

*Hate that*



HackWork said:


> The OP never returned to see any replies.



I hate when they do that. Not taking advice is one thing, but not even coming back to look is something else.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

just the cowboy said:


> I hate when they do that. Not taking advice is one thing, but not even coming back to look is something else.


 It looks like being an electrical engineer is his best bet, he already has half the job down cold.


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## Martine (Jan 26, 2018)

HackWork said:


> The OP never returned to see any replies.


I mean why even bother posting at that point? lain:


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