Career in Engineering for Son ?
Discussion
16plates said:
I feel like every bnit of advise i give in this section is the same, however... anyone looking to get in to engineering should strongly consider a merchant navy cadetship. Especially your lad at 15.
Any training company he is succesful with wil pay for him to complete an HND or Foundation Degree and even the full BEng Hons should both parties want and agree it's viable.
They will also pay a wage of £800- £1200 a month during training. All the above means he's trained to degree level with no student debt.
When qualified he will be looking at 3rd engineer/electrical engineer jobs onboard merchant ships, starting at around 26k (tax free). Scope for earning is massive, if hes clever, committed and flexible in 10 years, depending on his moves and choices he should be on upwards of 50k, again tax free.
Meantime... his time will be spent between sea and home, 6 months at work, 6 months at home, chilling, driving his cars, renovating houses, whatever he's into. When at sea he'll be having life changing experiences, travelling the world, meeting loads of people, cultures, races. Working hard but playing hard too.
I got into it late as I tossed it off and done a graphic design degree for 4 years first... given my time again i'd of been straight onto this at 17/18 when i finished school.
If you/he wants more info on how to find out more (companies to look into, time frames, school grades etc...) just ask and i'll happily help.
Stick with him... choosing a career is tough, especially at 15 but no matter what anyone says, his choices over the next 3/4/5 years will really count.
Hi 16plates - where are the options for getting into merchant navy after a degree and oil and gas rig experience? Does it happen or does everyone have to go and be a student?Any training company he is succesful with wil pay for him to complete an HND or Foundation Degree and even the full BEng Hons should both parties want and agree it's viable.
They will also pay a wage of £800- £1200 a month during training. All the above means he's trained to degree level with no student debt.
When qualified he will be looking at 3rd engineer/electrical engineer jobs onboard merchant ships, starting at around 26k (tax free). Scope for earning is massive, if hes clever, committed and flexible in 10 years, depending on his moves and choices he should be on upwards of 50k, again tax free.
Meantime... his time will be spent between sea and home, 6 months at work, 6 months at home, chilling, driving his cars, renovating houses, whatever he's into. When at sea he'll be having life changing experiences, travelling the world, meeting loads of people, cultures, races. Working hard but playing hard too.
I got into it late as I tossed it off and done a graphic design degree for 4 years first... given my time again i'd of been straight onto this at 17/18 when i finished school.
If you/he wants more info on how to find out more (companies to look into, time frames, school grades etc...) just ask and i'll happily help.
Stick with him... choosing a career is tough, especially at 15 but no matter what anyone says, his choices over the next 3/4/5 years will really count.
jakewright said:
Hi 16plates - where are the options for getting into merchant navy after a degree and oil and gas rig experience? Does it happen or does everyone have to go and be a student?
Your degree and experience will help but the chances are you will gave to go and be a student. With related degree and experience though, you can do a 'fast track' programme... this is 18 months split between sea and college (glasgow or newcastle or southampton)and home.Going back to studying is an issue for many because of the drop in wages however the scope for employment afterwards is massive. There were two 40 year old guys in my class at college when i done my cadetship, they saved a load beforehand to compensate for reduced earnings and are now doing well.
16plates said:
Your degree and experience will help but the chances are you will gave to go and be a student. With related degree and experience though, you can do a 'fast track' programme... this is 18 months split between sea and college (glasgow or newcastle or southampton)and home.
Going back to studying is an issue for many because of the drop in wages however the scope for employment afterwards is massive. There were two 40 year old guys in my class at college when i done my cadetship, they saved a load beforehand to compensate for reduced earnings and are now doing well.
Thanks for the reply. I am not in a bad job for my age, a good company, unless something were to happen I think I would struggle to go back to student wage (and compensate with savings...)Going back to studying is an issue for many because of the drop in wages however the scope for employment afterwards is massive. There were two 40 year old guys in my class at college when i done my cadetship, they saved a load beforehand to compensate for reduced earnings and are now doing well.
I’m an electrical and electronics engineer and the uni course I did covered many areas from software and low voltage digital electronics through to analogue high voltage, automotive and audio.
I admittedly did badly in my A-levels (maths, physics and English), so I had to do a foundation year to get onto the undergrad course. I realised I had to knuckle down, study hard and came out of it with an MEng and I’m now working towards CEng.
As others have said, the pure maths level required is high and the first year of my course aimed to get you to a level so that you could calculate 3rd order Fourier transforms by hand in the second year. Around 30% of people on my course dropped out after the first year, just on the maths alone.
As far as a career goes, in electronics/software the money is good once you get to senior level (40k-60k) and, in the electronics area, there is a demand for good software, analogue and control engineers. If you get into apple or android software dev you can quite easily earn up to +70K and I know this as a friend of mine is hiring for these positions at this salary level. Some people may argue that this a software engineer role, but as an electronics engineer I’ve had to code in C, C++, C#, html, matlab, Java and read apple iphone application software code.
I’ve been lucky enough to work for Ricardo, Williams Hybrid Power and I’m now at Aston Martin which was my dream job when I left uni. It took a lot of hard work and dedication but I’ve got to where I wanted to be. It can also be very rewarding, at Ricardo I worked on the foxhound military vehicle as a lead engineer and it’s a good feeling to know I’ve worked on something that is saving the lives of our guys who go out in these hostile environments.
Make sure that it’s something he’ll want to do as it is a lot of hard work and if it’s something you are interested in and want to do, it really helps.
I admittedly did badly in my A-levels (maths, physics and English), so I had to do a foundation year to get onto the undergrad course. I realised I had to knuckle down, study hard and came out of it with an MEng and I’m now working towards CEng.
As others have said, the pure maths level required is high and the first year of my course aimed to get you to a level so that you could calculate 3rd order Fourier transforms by hand in the second year. Around 30% of people on my course dropped out after the first year, just on the maths alone.
As far as a career goes, in electronics/software the money is good once you get to senior level (40k-60k) and, in the electronics area, there is a demand for good software, analogue and control engineers. If you get into apple or android software dev you can quite easily earn up to +70K and I know this as a friend of mine is hiring for these positions at this salary level. Some people may argue that this a software engineer role, but as an electronics engineer I’ve had to code in C, C++, C#, html, matlab, Java and read apple iphone application software code.
I’ve been lucky enough to work for Ricardo, Williams Hybrid Power and I’m now at Aston Martin which was my dream job when I left uni. It took a lot of hard work and dedication but I’ve got to where I wanted to be. It can also be very rewarding, at Ricardo I worked on the foxhound military vehicle as a lead engineer and it’s a good feeling to know I’ve worked on something that is saving the lives of our guys who go out in these hostile environments.
Make sure that it’s something he’ll want to do as it is a lot of hard work and if it’s something you are interested in and want to do, it really helps.
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