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welding?

DXMkid420

DXMkid420

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 18, 2009
Messages
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in your medicine cabinent
hey guys, so im 16 almost 17 and i am thinking about dropping out of highschool and learning how to weld. my family is pretty well off in the money department so i will be able to go to scool for it. im currently failing highschool anyways and im thinking about getting my GED later and get a headstart on my carrer. my parents have already said i can do this if its wat i want. bluelight has never let me down before so ill ask you guys. is it a good idea?
 
I would say stay in high school and get your diploma. It's only 1 more year of your life. It might make a difference in the future as it shows you have the gumption to just suck it up and finish something. At that point, you can go into welding if you still feel like it.
 
Excellent idea!


And congratulations on being intelligent enough to realize that academia is a complete and utter waste of time! My only concern is that welding is pretty well limited to, well...welding. So it might be safer to pick a "jack of all trades" trade, for flexibility reasons.
 
welding fucking rocks. such a useful thing to be able to do. I 100% support this decision too, but see no reason why you should duck out of high school now and finish it later. better to go back to it once you are a ltte more grown up and can appreciate the value of having it.
 
Well, if you're sure you're going to fail high school then maybe leaving is a good idea. But you should only do this if you are absolutely sure you're going to fail. It would be much better to pass high school now and then go and study welding than to drop out and go back to school later. Going back later will be much more difficult, and without even a high school level of education, as well as a very specific qualification like welding, you will be very vulnerable to changes in the job market. If you can only do one thing, then if that one thing is not in demand you are screwed. You are even more screwed if you didn't even finish high school, since that pretty much puts you in the lowest possible category of jobs.

This is not an argument against welding as a trade. If that's what you're interested in then great, go ahead and do that. But I think you should do it after you pass high school at least. The current job market is not kind to people with the level of education, and specialised training, that you are proposing. I think you should only do what you're describing if you're completely sure you can't pass high school even if you put in a lot more work (which you should do).

Academic qualifications are not a waste of time. Your level of education is an enormous influence on your overall wellbeing. It influences your job (and hence life) security, and gives you the ability to adapt to changes in the job market. In fact I think that there should be a rule against saying study is a waste of time on this board - it's not true, it's willfully ignorant, and it's poor advice to anyone, particularly people having a hard time at school.
 
I agree with the posts saying you shouldn't drop out. You say you are failing but do you have any chance of graduating? I would definitely try to get a diploma, as everyone else said you'll have the feeling of being able to finish something at least. High school sucks ass, I know it does, but its worth it to just get through it --- I'm guessing everyone hates it. I'm a grad student now, and while some say they'd love to go back to highschool, one couldn't even begin to pay me enough.

The job market in the US has been real funky lately, my dad has no education and is a bread baker here in NY, and if the bakery he works at shuts down, he has no other skills, so he is shit out of luck. Having something to fall back on, even a highschool diploma is incredibly important.

Binge Artist, I don't think academia is a pure waste of time. At this point even having a BA is insanely common, and if this kid's welding stuff falls through...well, me almost having a MA would get me hired over him not even having a GED for almost any job other than labor, especially when low on the experience scale. Unfortunately that does matter, and to employers academia is not a waste of time...even in terms of welding, it does show them that you are capable of following through with things you start, which is important in ANY field, be it academia or welding or anything else.
 
My guess is that finishing school would actually be EASIER if you dropped out and went to work as a welder. Two reasons for this, discipline and confidence. As far as the discipline aspect goes, you learn quickly as a young tradesman that if you don't work you don't eat. And that kind of thing makes you grow up quickly! As far as confidence goes, you learn that a good tradesman is, quite plainly, more smarter than a teacher. Yep, teachers may look smart in that little hole in the world (school) they've managed to carve out, but if that hole went away, so would a good 30 years on their average life expectancy. And knowing you got more "real world" smarts than them gives you the extra drive to beat them at their own game.
 
^But that "little hole in the world" isn't going away. It seems like you are just trying to justify your lot in life by putting down others. That ain't cool man. Do your trade because you like to do it and you are good it, not because you had a jerk teacher in high school.
"Beat them at their own game?" wtf are you going on about?

Anyway I will agree with the rest of posters that getting your highschool diploma is totally worth it. Aren't there welding classes that you could be taking that your highschool offers?
I know my highschool offered trade school options that allowed students to get their diploma while gaining experience in whichever trade they chose.
 
ok i see. well you have all got some good points. when i say im gonna fail highschool its because of my drug use and stopping just isnt realistic at this point in my life. i have tried countless times and it just dosnt work. im too caught up in the lifestyle and everything else. so dropping out might actually be better for me. im starting to realize i might not have my good drug connects for ever. i am currently not paying for my drugs, but it might not stay that way. if i can get good at welding then at least ill have a better chance of bieng able to get a job to support my "habbits"
 
hold on a second... you can't pass high school because of a drug problem, so you are going to take up a slightly dangerous and far more difficult trade? dude, just no.

if you can't pass high school because of a drug problem, I suggest you take up rehab.
 
I'm with toa$t, having a drug habit is a REALLY bad reason to want to drop out of high school. If it's bad enough that you can't make it to classes literally and figuratively then you won't make it as a welder either. If you're not willing to change your habits then you're going to face a lot more adversity than you're facing right now.

No high school diploma + drug problem + needing money to live = not much good :(

Please go get some help. The good thing is you're really young so you have time to get this together. :) Good luck.
 
I guess it depends a lot on the nature of the drug problem. From the cut of your jib, it sounds like opiate addiction, but that's beyond the scope of this forum, I believe.
 
I agree with the other posters who say that the problem here is not high school, it's your drug problem. Dropping out of high school won't solve this, and it will be more difficult to stick with a trade if you have a drug problem. That said, if your drug problems are serious enough, dealing with them might in itself prevent you from graduating high school. Regardless, neither school nor work are going to pan out if you're on drugs all the time.

My advice remains the same. Finish high school if you can. If you can't, then go and do what you need to do, starting by getting off the drugs. If you do drop out, I think you should go back and finish as soon as you're able. The current job market is not kind to people without high school diplomas.
 
well heres the thing. if something interests me like welding, i can do it no problem, i can put in the time and effort that i need to because its something i like. im just tired of overhearing my parents saying what a looser and how pathetic i am. so im gonna try to prove them wrong. and no its not an opiate addiction. its DXM. yes i no its not addicting but for me it is. and MDMA. it sucks because i know the way im going im going to end up a looser, but i just dont do anything about it. i feel like welding is my only real shot, agree with me or not its how i feel. the only other option i have is to keep selling drugs
 
If going and studying welding is going to give you something to do that you enjoy, is productive, and is going to help you get your life together then go ahead and do it. You'll probably have to go back to school at some stage but right now it seems you've made your mind up, and if nothing else is looking worthwhile then welding is probably a good option. Good luck to you.
 
I understand how you feel, but if you don't take care of your drug problem it will manifest into a bigger issue as time passes.

My vote is go to rehab, and then come back and finish school.
 
DXMkid, you remind me a lot of the kids I started undergrad with. None of them graduated, because of putting their drug problems first. I also have a problem with a substance a lot of people on this forum will say can't cause a problem, pot. I didn't plan on slowing down, but I like to keep a balance of work and play...the harder I want to play, the harder I have to work.

Anyway, the big problem those kids I knew had was not wanting to get through the bullshit. Unfortunately, to take classes you want and to learn what you want to learn, you need to get through a ton of bullshit. If I were you, I'd try to get through the bullshit, and then you can focus on what you clearly care about. Its part of the human condition to have to do things we don't want to do all the time, and its partly maturity, something I definitely had close to none of at your age. You seem like a good kid, and hearing you call yourself a loser is sad...lots of the people I know who are 'winners' play around with drugs and stuff as well, but it goes back to what I said earlier...it's all about balance, man.
 
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