I'm an IT grad that eventually shifted into construction. I saw a lot of bullshit in this thread and decided to make an account. 1) Join the union! Megabucks! Job security! Ok, first, joining a union isn't like you go down to your local and say "Hello, sir, I want to be an apprentice!" Apprenticeships are very shitty jobs that are extremely competive. Between immigrants, people that can barely count to five, and druggies, you are fighting for a spot in what is practically the largest labor pool in any fucking industry. Oh, and your degree doesn't mean dick. To be an apprentice, you need to have experience. At least two years is best. And even then you will probably be on a waiting list for at least a year. And you will need to be willing to work for basically minimum wage for at least a year or two. You can bypass some of this if you're willing to relocate, but your best bets are going to be God forsaken country: middle of nowhere North Dakota, smell like a camel's nutsack Texas, etc. You will work long ass hours, do horrible ass work, and probably travel a lot. If you are lucky, you'll make friends with someone who knows what they are doing, and they will actually teach you something. You are the absolute bottom of the totem pole. You will be treated as expendable. If you don't work out, it doesn't matter, because they probably have thousands of people who will replace you. Oh but you'll become a journeyman eventually and then it'll all be better. Yeah, no. Remember that job security? Remember that whole "you will travel a lot" thing? Well I hope you enjoy two star hotels and shacking up with 1-3 other guys, because that will be your life for several years. You will make *decent* money at this point depending on your trade, but it will be at the cost of a family, a social life, and a home, and it won't be anything remotely close to your career path at the moment. So, given a rough estimation of your age, you will be about 35-40 before things get good. That is assuming that A) you haven't gone crazy, B) you haven't sustained some fucked up injury, and C) you haven't become a drug addict. People vastly overestimate the amount of money you will make though, and they always seem to forget you will be working 60 hours or so a week. Don't get me wrong, it is good money at this point. You will be solidly middle class. But it's a hard ass road to get there man. That doesn't mean the shit stops though. Unions create a special kind of bullshit to deal with. Let's take you into a scenario. You are working a commercial job, and the electricians misread the prints. They put an outlet at I don't know, 24 inches when it was supposed to be 16. You can't do shit unless this outlet is at 16 inches. You also can't move the outlet, because that's not your union. So option A), you move the outlet. their supervisor is going to scream at you. And I don't mean like he's going to be upset, I mean like you might end up hitting this motherfucker. Your boss is going to get bitched out. For a long time. He's not going to blame you, but he's going to be fucking aggravated. Their union might file a complaint against your union, at which point you will basically go to a court hearing to justify you moving this outlet. All of it is very bad. You probably won't get in trouble, but it will be remembered. Option B) you don't move the outlet. Your boss is going to get bitched out. For a long time. He's not going to blame you, but he's going to be fucking aggravated. He's going to go scream at their supervisor. And I don't mean like he's going to be mad, I mean like you're going to be wondering at what point you and the other carpenters are supposed to go kick all the electricians' asses. Your union is going to file a complaint against their union, because they fucked up your union's schedule. You will have to basically go to court to explain why you didn't move this outlet. You probably won't get in trouble but it will be remembered. Another scenario. You walk into a dark room. You flip a light switch and turn the light on. You get suspended and sent off the job. Because you were not authorized to operate, modify, or interact with any electrical installation or appliance on the work area. Because that's not your union. Your boss gets bitched at. Their boss gets bitched at. You lose weeks of pay because you didn't think to ask an electrician to turn on a light for you. It will definitely be remembered and probably affect your career. Now, I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but I have actually been there when this shit happened. And I know I seem like I am picking on electricians (honestly they fucking deserve it but OK), but I am trying to emphasize the extreme amount of convoluted bureaucracy that is involved in working union jobs. Now besides that, there's also a kind of open secret that a lot of unions are damned near criminal. I can't even begin to list the ways a union will fuck you to death for stepping out of line. Plumbers are the worst about this. Plumbing is a gravy job 90% of the time. I know there's this perception about "Oh my gosh, a shitpipe just exploded in my face" or whatever, but most of the time you're probably doing the least amount of work for the most pay, which is incredible because electricians don't do dick. 2) So don't be in a union. Do your own thing. You'll be a gagillionaire with a mcmansion in five years, bro. No. Well, maybe. But you're going to be working 80 hours a week, if not more. You're going to deal with rejection, a lot. You're going to bend your morals for them dollar signs. You're going to meet a lot of strange ass people, some of which are openly hostile to you for no reason. You're going to explain the same shit over and over again, because people don't know dick about construction. You're going to be responsible for a crew of guys, and their families, in one of the most heavily regulated industries in existence. You're going to have to be a complete prick sometimes, especially as people on construction aren't often the most well adjusted. If you fuck up, you will lose everything important to you. If they fuck up, you might lose everything important to you. You will need to be a CEO, a construction worker, a foreman, and a salesman all at the same time. It's not easy. It requires a lot of drive, discipline, and intelligence. And even when you're doing everything right, you're going to get bent over and absolutely raped sometimes. 3) Well fuck all that then, just be a tradesman! I mean, yeah. It's not a bad idea. Honestly. You can easily work a standard 40 and make about 40-50k a year in a few years if you have any talent. In fact you will probably make more in the short term than any job you would get out of college. I hire guys at 12 an hour and bump them to 16 6-12 months later if they seem good. My top guy makes about 30 an hour, but he's way above the rest and is basically a business partner. I will tell you this though, if you don't hit that "30 an hour" mark (metaphorically speaking) by age 50, I hope you planned your retirement really well. Because you're most likely going to be too broken to be worth keeping as a hand and just not have the shit to be in any other position. I know way too many gray haired tradesmen hustling around like 20 somethings, just praying for that social security to kick in. And dude, if you have a construction resume, you're getting passed over a lot for any work that isn't construction. Now, I'm not shitting on trade jobs. If anything, turning to trades was one of the best decisions of my life. But I think it's important to be realistic about it. If you're kind of on the fence, which it seems like you are, an MBA seems like the best route. There's also project management, civil engineering, and a whole slew of other programs that will get you a leg up in trades. You should be focusing on how to use your mind more than your back. Keep in mind, there's a reason people who can't hack it in college or high school end up in trades. You have an advantage in that you're relatively intelligent. Use it. If you decide you want to go into the trades, here is my advice as someone who was in a similar position: find a relatively small crew and join as a helper/general labor. Avoid big companies where you will be lost in the shuffle. If you have a brain, *your boss will notice*. I have worked for guys that didn't make it out of eighth grade. This isn't high school where everything is a pissing contest and it's nerds vs jocks or whatever. If you can use trigonometry to figure out what cuts you need to make without even looking at the roof, motherfuckers will respect you or even fear you. My first year on the job, I was supervising guys that had over a decade of experience. I have essentially been offered to take over three different companies. Because I listened in high school. I'm not saying that to be a prick, just you should consider yourself a commodity, not because you have a piece of paper, but because you're easily trained and you have the potential to make more money for the company than your peers. Despite this, above all, be humble. Be a leader. Look into plumbing (residential is best to start unless you can operate heavy machinery), trim/finish carpentry, and god help me, electricity. They are the jobs you do the least back breaking shit and make the most money. They're also considered "advanced" which drops the pool of competition significantly. You can learn a lot of what you need to bullshit yourself into the position on the internet. The rest is a willingness to work hard and not be afraid to fail. The most important thing though is finding something you enjoy doing. Because you will be doing the same thing a lot. Granted, making $400 in 4 hours helps to make it a lot less tedious, but still. Focus on the physical aspects of the job. Learn to cut straight, how to use tools, so forth. Develop muscle memory. The mental aspect of trade jobs is fairly low. I'm not saying that to be a prick, again. But the tricky shit in general construction is not hard to understand. If you decide you really want to get into this kind of work, and you're in the SE US, let me know and we can talk. I am always looking for good hands, even if they don't have their callouses yet.