Personal Experience?

[Mike n NC]

Hey Mike, it seems there aren't many comments on trade schools here so let me toss in my two cents worth.
I went directly from HS to a Junior College...Big mistake!! A year later I joined the Navy. While military in nature, Navy schools are much like trade schools; they leave off the trimmings and serve up the meat of the knowledge. Throughout my carreer I attended several different schools and worked in those fields. One thing I found was that I was trained to a much higher degree than my non-military counterparts, a BIG plus when I retired and entered the job market. Had I to do it all over again, I would do it exactly the same way.
I did return to college at the age of 40, more settled and ready to learn as shown by the 3.94 gpa I carried. Now being on the hire/fire end of the business world there is one warning I will add about education; It is only as good as the amount of common sense you temper it with. A couple of points to consider:

It is rare to know what you want to spend your life doing when you haven't done anything yet.

Give yourself some time to experience different work fields.

Those that are pushing you on to college have good intentions BUT...they don't have to live your life.

Should you choose college at some point I strongly discourage the liberal arts route. Most of those jobs are entry level only and require a masters degree for advancement. I will qualify that by saying there are exceptions. Our own Todd is a fine example.

My bottom line is this; I will hire a skilled tradesman over an out of work english major any day. (and will pay him more!)

Oh yeah, at the age of 54 I'm planning to start back to school to add on the classes I need to become a CIH (Certified Industrial Hygenist, MS level)

Mike