John not watching/reading the news lately?
Yes, if you know your stuff, not really, dead wrong.
No, Carl sticks to roofs, commercial ones at that. I agree with John to a point though that a lot of home inspectors are not what you might expect them to be. Nice shiny reports though.
Be cool Car...Cal 
You are not what I was talking about. I know a couple of roofing consultants - one in particular around here is known as "Santa" cause he looks like the jolly old elf himself. He knows his stuff, as he has to and as I'm sure you do.
I was talking about the wankers that go out to inspect an older house (or even a new one) with little more than a paper badge and a head full of nothing. I have seen / repaired some of the serious structural defects they have missed. Defects that could prove fatal if we get one of those 100 year snowfalls or the like. I have yet to meet / see the work of a competent one.
You are not what I was talking about. I know a couple of roofing consultants - one in particular around here is known as "Santa" cause he looks like the jolly old elf himself. He knows his stuff, as he has to and as I'm sure you do.
I was talking about the wankers that go out to inspect an older house (or even a new one) with little more than a paper badge and a head full of nothing. I have seen / repaired some of the serious structural defects they have missed. Defects that could prove fatal if we get one of those 100 year snowfalls or the like. I have yet to meet / see the work of a competent one.
not going to. don't worry.
that would be too close to the field from which i am trying to escape.
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and here is another problem - i have bad memory. i had all the formulas programmed into my TI-89 in college. and i never for the life of me remembered anything in history.
i guess this means anything medical is out for me ? i am very good at understanding concepts and very bad at memorizing information.
i guess this means anything medical is out for me ? i am very good at understanding concepts and very bad at memorizing information.
I don't think that someone whose true passion was engineering would ever say this. If you are concerned about status and what the other guy thinks, engineering is probably not the path for you. Engineering is about problem solving, not fame.
Doctors and lawyers are not any better than engineers or even janitors. If you are bothered by doctors or lawyers looking down on you, you MADE YOURSELF less than them.
Lawyers are looked down upon by everyone, except when they need one. Doctors salaries are going to drop soon, as most of their tasks are going to be taken over by people with almost as much education, but no MD and only a third the salary. Doctoring is going to become an exercise in evidence based medicine, lots of tests and paperwork and diagnostic table reviewing and less and less time with patients. It's not like it is on "House".
If you want job satisfaction, do what you love and screw what anyone else thinks. People will admire you for that, believe me.
If you want security, look at a career they can't outsource and isn't affected as much by the economy. Think of skilled jobs that don't change much whether the economy is up or down. Maybe not glamorous, but reliable. Medicine, accounting, firefighting, teaching....
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Depends on how much you've paid to some of them for posting you a pile of xerox copies with cute press-fit paper clips each week at $400/hr the pop.
It's quite shocking to discover in real life that the average intelligence required to pass the bar in 4 years is even worse than the white screen suggests.
When i think of all the dumb blonde law students i could have ravashed at fraternity brawls instead of hauling beer with a mix of early age CAD types and tattood/earpierced ex merchant marines.
Seriously, i'm thinking of getting a maritime contract lawyer degree, for other reasons than cold hard C.
As for docs, My g/f trained someone in the last 1.5 years of her 4 year specialised physician program.
She became a full member of the team when she got her license, not much later she started talks about conspiracy and did looney stuff like hide behind a column in the hall each time she spotted my g/f.
The lady already had a PhD in virology before she entered the other program.
Turned out she'd been pushed to quit her job at a virology center, plus an extended vacation at a psych ward, following a period of the same behaviour.
Second time, the dame was also given the option to voluntarily quit, as it saved the hospital a bundle.
Tralala applied for a fully licensed position at another hospital, and has been employed there for the last couple of years.
Average full-time salary of a licensed doc in that line of work is +$200K.
MJL21193, Borat, Ron E:
That was an unfortunate moderation, it actually made an innocuous phrase into its "evil twin".
That's more common than you'd think. I've never tried to memorise everything. I just remember where to find it in a manual. I can't even rmember all the combinations of Ohm's Law, I just keep them on my PDA.
The trick is, you don't have to know it all. You just have to know where to find it. How good are you at researching and organising?
Ron said that better than I could. And in any "high skill" or "high knowledge base" profession, you need to put in extra work to stay current. If you don't love what you're doing, you won't make the effort and you'll fail.
The problem with that is, any job that can't be outsourced but where there is pressure to cut costs, such as teaching, will suffer from an influx of highly trained workers from other countries prepared to work harder for less.
(Well, maybe not harder, but certainly for less money and worse conditions.)
That was an unfortunate moderation, it actually made an innocuous phrase into its "evil twin".
That's more common than you'd think. I've never tried to memorise everything. I just remember where to find it in a manual. I can't even rmember all the combinations of Ohm's Law, I just keep them on my PDA.
The trick is, you don't have to know it all. You just have to know where to find it. How good are you at researching and organising?
Ron said that better than I could. And in any "high skill" or "high knowledge base" profession, you need to put in extra work to stay current. If you don't love what you're doing, you won't make the effort and you'll fail.
The problem with that is, any job that can't be outsourced but where there is pressure to cut costs, such as teaching, will suffer from an influx of highly trained workers from other countries prepared to work harder for less.
(Well, maybe not harder, but certainly for less money and worse conditions.)
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Speaking from direct experience as a tradesman. That influx only effects those who are comparible in skill. For example, I was called in to do service work at a plant (I'm an electrician), where they had an inhouse man for that purpose. This guy carries the same license as I, and took home $20 less a hour. (forgeting about my employer's margin). There are boat loads of immigrant workers willing to accept less, but that will never effect those who are worth the $$$.
Teacher's unions will never allow wages to fall.
To become a PhD or not to become a PhD, that is the question...
Here's my perspective. I graduated with my Master's in 2002 just in time for the economy to hit the tank. Great! I had the opportunity to continue my studies towards a PhD with the same advisor as I had for my Master's. So I did that. Three years later, I still didn't have a dissertation topic, wasn't getting anywhere, and got an internship with the semiconductor company where I work now. I realized that the corporate world wasn't as bad as the academia nuts wanted me to believe. I also realized that unless your PhD dissertation is directly applicable to the work you will be doing for the company you get hired by, it's really not worth much more than a Master's in terms of salary differences or work responsibilities and career opportunities. So I jumped ship and turned the internship into a permanent position. Best move I've made in quite a while. I've learned more working in the field than I did studying for my PhD.
That said, IF you do have the drive and passion for a narrow niche within a broader field -- basically IF you have a strong burning desire to become a world expert in a teeny-tiny piece of the puzzle, by all means go for a doctorate degree. A PhD isn't just "read the book, do the project, take the test" kind of schooling. It's self-driven, self-study from top to bottom. At least that was my advisor's take on it -- and I do agree with it. Other advisors may offer more of a prepackaged deal. YMMV.
Judging by your posts above, it doesn't sound like you know what your passion is. If you did, your questions would be directed at finding a university and advisor that would be able to advise you in achieving a PhD in that field.
"What do you wanna be when you grow up?" is a hard question to answer -- especially when you are grown up (or so you think) and you find yourself stuck in a rut. But that's the question you need to answer...
Good luck. Keep us posted.
~Tom
Here's my perspective. I graduated with my Master's in 2002 just in time for the economy to hit the tank. Great! I had the opportunity to continue my studies towards a PhD with the same advisor as I had for my Master's. So I did that. Three years later, I still didn't have a dissertation topic, wasn't getting anywhere, and got an internship with the semiconductor company where I work now. I realized that the corporate world wasn't as bad as the academia nuts wanted me to believe. I also realized that unless your PhD dissertation is directly applicable to the work you will be doing for the company you get hired by, it's really not worth much more than a Master's in terms of salary differences or work responsibilities and career opportunities. So I jumped ship and turned the internship into a permanent position. Best move I've made in quite a while. I've learned more working in the field than I did studying for my PhD.
That said, IF you do have the drive and passion for a narrow niche within a broader field -- basically IF you have a strong burning desire to become a world expert in a teeny-tiny piece of the puzzle, by all means go for a doctorate degree. A PhD isn't just "read the book, do the project, take the test" kind of schooling. It's self-driven, self-study from top to bottom. At least that was my advisor's take on it -- and I do agree with it. Other advisors may offer more of a prepackaged deal. YMMV.
Judging by your posts above, it doesn't sound like you know what your passion is. If you did, your questions would be directed at finding a university and advisor that would be able to advise you in achieving a PhD in that field.
"What do you wanna be when you grow up?" is a hard question to answer -- especially when you are grown up (or so you think) and you find yourself stuck in a rut. But that's the question you need to answer...
Good luck. Keep us posted.
~Tom
You could specialize in Alzheimer's disease. Your patients would be very understanding if you needed to check your notes occasionally.
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