ETA one more question:
-Even if his answers all of the above indicate aptitude, is it something he can imagine himself doing every day for the next 40 years?
I love doing DIY stuff around my house - electrical, plumbing, framing, building (not painting. I hate painting) - but I’m not sure I’d want to do it everyday until I retire.
Sounds like me to a tee!
Smart cookie but undisciplined for academia.
Accidentally fell into a “job” as process operator in agrochemicals (Ammonia Plant)
And immediately loved it and hungered for more knowledge about steam turbines, reactors, CO2 removal systems resip pumps centrifugal pumps and compressors etc.
Moved on to the oil patch and rose up from production technician to lead commissioning engineer looking after 5 offshore production platforms and a new build FPSO
Just finished my last gig as commissioning manager on a world class LNG plant. Loved every aspect of my job, learned every day and finishing my career teaching and mentoring younger engineers and local staff.
best wishes to you and your son
Horsefeathers … accounting is the highest form of mathematical thought … money is the only thing worth counting … think about it, it doesn’t matter what you do for a living, come payday you’ll be doing accounting …
I agree … one doesn’t knock off LinAlgebra in high school unless they love math … this gets the boy straight A’s in all the lower division science classes with little effort and it seems a shame to waste such talent waiting on Englishing classes …
We had him tested after Freshman year of college. He made a D in AP English, although he got a 4 on the AP exam. When it came to writing palers , he froze. He just didn’t turn assignments in and passed by acing the final. His spelling is excellent. Write a speech to deliver to a very highly educated congregation on Sunday? He leaves everyone impressed. Write a short paper on some book he was assigned (and enjoyed reading)? Forget it.
He hates science unless it’s Physics. That’s one of the three classes he passed in college (the others being a math class and an acting class). He’s also thought about getting an Associate’s in math along with a Data Science certificate. With his few college credits and not inconsiderable AP credit he wouldn’t have to do a huge amount of general ed. I don’t think that would make him employable by itself, but with a Bachelor’s in math or stats I’d think he’d be on more solid ground.
I’m sure he has no real idea what working in the trades is like. Having grown up on a farm with a dad and brothers who are all very handy, I do. The working in all kinds of weather part wouldn’t bother him, but he lacks the country boy strength I developed throwing around bay bales, wrestling calves, and carrying big cases of eggs around.
If he’s not a complete klutz and able to lift 10 pounds over his head than he’s physically capable of working in the trades, though not necessarily the most versatile tradesman.
Success in the trades comes in two different ways. One way is to be able to do it, make some ok money, and be happy with your life because you aren’t sitting in an office or constantly dealing with people or having to wear a tie to work and other such requirements common in the white collar world. Another way is to make it through the apprentice and journeyman phases of the trade and reaching master status where you will spend most of your time directing others, taking care of paperwork, and dealing with inspectors, and making some pretty decent dough.
So talk about these things with your son, and help him talk to some tradesmen about it.
However, I think your son should get a job as a computer programmer at some company with flexible hours and liberal dress code. He sounds a lot like me except he knows some math too. He can probably already code well enough and plenty of companies will be impressed by his background, but even with high demand a hefty number of companies won’t consider him without the degree. He should at least be taking more courses so he can say he’s still working on a degree to keep more doors open. The lack of written communication skills seems to have become a job requirement for being a software engineer so that won’t hold him back. If he appears to still be in school he may qualify for some internship programs that will start out paying him more than he’d make for a long time in the trades.
What region of the country are you/he in?
We’re right outside of DC. He was in a very competitive math\science\computer science magnet program in high school. He got to the point where he didn’t like the science part at all and didn’t care much about the computer part either (I remember him telling us that he could imagine spending his life writing code).
Start looking around at local classes. Our county puts out a quarterly magazine that is just chocked full of classes, some cost money, some don’t.
Saw a bunch of friends on FB lately interested in going to an event. Was a 3 day Blacksmithing intro class. 295 people (!!!) attempted to sign up for it.
Take a look at this, which I’ve set for Washington, DC, but you can change to other areas.
Here is the filter for Hobbies > DIY
Also, go on Facebook, click Events on the left, then Discover. You can then choose categories, Crafts being one. Tons of local events he can check out to see if he likes things.
Plumbing is among the best paying trades.
There’s multiple career paths.
Work for a large contractor, installing new plumbing in homes and buildings.
Commercial Plumbing. Work for the Water Company, a manufacturer or large public building like a hospital.
Residential, either with a company or as a self employed plumber. Residential plumbers are the ones most of us call
Then there’s specialized work. Replacing sewer lines from the house to the street,Roto-Rooter etc. My regular plumber doesn’t do this work.
While the trades are a good way to make a living, I’m not seeing anything in what you’ve written that would lead me to believe he has an aptitude for it. He might end up liking it, but there’s no reason for me to think, “Oh yeah, that guy is perfect to be a plumber”. If he had a natural inclination for the trades, you’d notice because his normal curiosity would mean he’d be building or taking apart stuff for fun. His favorite toys would have been building things like legos and such.
I don’t think you should push him to the trades since he seems unmotivated at the moment. If he doesn’t want to do it for himself, I don’t think he’ll get fired up from being in that environment.
It sounds like he just needs to find a job–any job–and discover what it feels like to be in the working world. There’s nothing wrong with getting a job in fast food. It might give him the motivation to find work that uses his mind instead of just being a human robot.
I know as a parent you want to help him out, but it might be best to let him figure it out. If he lands on his face, he’ll figure out how to get himself back up. The risk of directing him into a path is that he won’t gain the skill to figure out the path himself.
If he’s just going to get a job, he might as well try to get a trade style job instead of a fast food job. He’s only 19, so if he finds out after two or three years that this is not for him, he’s no worse off than before. And maybe then when goes back to college he’ll be able to apply himself and do his homework even though he doesn’t like it.
Could or couldn’t imagine that? I’m asking because if he could then it’s the direction he should be taking. If he couldn’t, I’ve heard that plenty of times, and said it myself, it ain’t as bad as it sounds. I could give him a couple of leads up here in the Boston area, nothing I know of right now in the DC area though. BTW: That’s where I grew up, in Bethesda, Maplewood, off Old Georgetown Rd. right next to NIH.
You said he had a “previously undiagnosed disability” but your description of his failure in college didn’t sound like a diagnosed disability. It sounded like someone who didn’t want to be there. You said you “had him tested”. By whom and for what? What was the outcome? Just curious. Seems like maybe he failed through not doing the work and what’s really needed is tutoring or help dealing with whatever his disability is. No?
I guess you’re aware that it helps to know someone to get in the trades?
Trade unions can be hard to crack. Getting accepted as an apprentice is the first step.
The better trade schools should be able to get their graduates placed in apprenticeships.
This is for Electricians. The other trades are similar.
https://www.trade-schools.net/articles/electrician-apprenticeships-become-an-electrician.asp
I would agree, but only if he wants a job in that field. If the parents are telling him “You need a job. Apply for a job in the trades.”, then he might not have the motivation to succeed.
Perhaps he could take some of those job placement tests. Can he still use the job center at his school? The tests ask a variety of questions and will recommend career fields based on his responses.
I suspected enough … he could pass College Englishing, but he doesn’t have enough self-discipline to do the assignments whether he wants to or not … that’s going to be a problem no matter what career he chooses …
Send him to the US Army, they’ll teach him discipline alright !!!
10 pounds is just a little over a gallon of water … a Skillsaw 77 weighs more than that … I can’t think of any building trade where one doesn’t have to lift 50 or 75 pounds on a regular basis …
I would never set my master tradesman to pushing paperwork around, he needs to be out there building things masterfully … it’s the worksite superintendent who handles the office work … management is a different skill set more aligned with business skills than with the trade … but yeah, the best money isn’t swinging your own hammer, but telling other people where to swing theirs …
Sure, but if the choice is between apprentice/warm body on a construction site and working at Dominos, which is a better idea? He’s not going to succeed at Dominos either, is he?
The good news about fucking up a crappy job at 19 is that it doesn’t matter. Oh, you pissed off your boss for reasons X, Y and Z and they fired you? Well, go get another crappy job, and maybe don’t fuck off so much this time. When you’re 40 nobody is going to be calling the boss from that crappy job you had after you flunked out of college.
If the problem is that he’s not motivated to do anything, neither college nor a job nor the military nor self employment, then the big thing is to not let him spend a lot of money on harebrained schemes or training until he gets himself squared away. If he’s squared away then he can succeed at any number of things, if he’s not, then he’s going to fail at everything.
When I joined the Navy at age 20, I had an aptitude for washing cars, and a bit of surveying experience. I had no intention of being an electrician, but made a 23 year career out of it and the associated management experience I gained along the way. Good training can make up a lot of ground for lack of experience.
He’s the one who expressed the interest. Personally I don’t see it as a match, but I say that as someone who it absolutely would not work for. He’s been working at Barnes and Noble, but it was a temp job that’s about to end (the store has already closed). He was never a builder, which is not surprising since I’m not either.