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 Avatar 720 wrote:
The UK apprentice minimum wage is £2.68 for apprentices under 19 or those in the first year of level 2 or 3 apprenticeships, compared to the national minimum wage of £6.38 for ages 21+, £5.03 for ages 18-20, and £3.72 for ages 17 and under.

wow... I am shocked at how low that is, I mean, I know trades are a bit better off here in CAN because we are a bit short on labour, ESP skilled labour.

But even a lowly first year makes 20$ an hour here if they are not dumb as doornails.... no lower limit for being young either.

its actually rediculously easy to make 100K + a year here if you are a journy man welder/rigger/pipefitter or any trade that can even tangentiall work the oil feild... even a basic labourer on the oil patch can pass 100k a year.

 easysauce wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
The UK apprentice minimum wage is £2.68 for apprentices under 19 or those in the first year of level 2 or 3 apprenticeships, compared to the national minimum wage of £6.38 for ages 21+, £5.03 for ages 18-20, and £3.72 for ages 17 and under.

wow... I am shocked at how low that is, I mean, I know trades are a bit better off here in CAN because we are a bit short on labour, ESP skilled labour.

But even a lowly first year makes 20$ an hour here if they are not dumb as doornails.... no lower limit for being young either.

its actually rediculously easy to make 100K + a year here if you are a journy man welder/rigger/pipefitter or any trade that can even tangentiall work the oil feild... even a basic labourer on the oil patch can pass 100k a year.

Yeah, it's painful to watch. Still, at least your options are a bit better...
And people wander why we're all pushed so hard to go to uni here. Not the right way to do things by any means.

Yeah - god it is hard starting out in the trades here. The rewards after 2-3 years are apparently ok though.

Speaking from my own experience - do what you like the look of and realise you can always about turn. I did a philosophy degree but then mastered in ships (I now work with oil tankers 2 years after masters).

Also - perhaps think about targeting an industry which is under subscribed/has growth potential if you don't have a 'calling' per se (and thats ok most people don't). Most office jobs are 80% the same, only the perks, money and quality of people really change.

Although there's good money in trades once you get past the apprenticeship barrier. I mean, ballpark something like £40-£60 for most tradesmen to come just have a look at something. Boilers and the like. That's nice money just to come say "Yeah, that's broken"

I hear there is good money in locksmith-ery.

An update on the whole "head up to North Dakota and get a job thing". I'm currently in North Dakota doing some conservation work and, well, its pretty insane up here.

Its like the wild west in the southwest part of the state. Drugs are popping up everywhere, prostitution and STI's are rampant in some towns, and there are a lot of shady people coming up here. Meth in particular is pretty bad, and apparently some workers are using it as a way to get through the long hours. Not to mention the Oil companies are absolutely ruining the land (20 to 30 years from now, the Southwest oil fields will be a wasteland at the rate they're going)

The money is still crazy good, but I wouldn't come up here to work without a carry permit. I would also try to find a job in the edge of the oilfields, where the "oil boom" effect is less severe. Some of those towns aren't so bad from the looks of them. If you need money to kill off student loans, can stomach some hard work, and are willing to effectively write off a few months of your life for financial freedom, I would go for it. Do not plan on making it a career though, although I'm sure skills you learned from it would be invaluable down the road, especially if you have skills like equipment operator, a mechanic, or a welder. These companies can't seem to hire enough of those.

 liquidjoshi wrote:

 easysauce wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
The UK apprentice minimum wage is £2.68 for apprentices under 19 or those in the first year of level 2 or 3 apprenticeships, compared to the national minimum wage of £6.38 for ages 21+, £5.03 for ages 18-20, and £3.72 for ages 17 and under.

wow... I am shocked at how low that is, I mean, I know trades are a bit better off here in CAN because we are a bit short on labour, ESP skilled labour.

But even a lowly first year makes 20$ an hour here if they are not dumb as doornails.... no lower limit for being young either.

its actually rediculously easy to make 100K + a year here if you are a journy man welder/rigger/pipefitter or any trade that can even tangentiall work the oil feild... even a basic labourer on the oil patch can pass 100k a year.

Yeah, it's painful to watch. Still, at least your options are a bit better...
And people wander why we're all pushed so hard to go to uni here. Not the right way to do things by any means.

It's fairly similar in Australia. First couple of years as an apprentice earn pitifully small income. Once qualified, depending on your trade, you're income is actually really good. It's mostly getting through the apprenticeship that's tough.

I suggest that you declare that you've found a lost Bible passage, distribute flyers around your college, and start a cult. Getting the first few followers is hard, but persistence is key. If you make your pitch to enough people, some are bound to fall for it. Once you get a dozen or so members, it's smooth sailing.

Towards the group as a whole, be vague and enigmatic. Give most of your declarations through followers, but when you do give a speech yourself, be as fiery and passionate as you can be. Regularly ask your followers to privately confide in you. Act as a sort of demented therapist. Use the experience to gain their trust or blackmail them if need be.

Eventually you'll hit that magical number. This number varies from group to group, but you'll know when you hit it. It's where you have plenty of followers, but you don't have so many that you get media attention. Media attention will whittle away at your following. Concerned parents will come rushing to "deprogram" their children. As such, once you hit the magic number, you have to act immediately.

Say you've found another new Bible passage. Order your followers to raise money, so that you can buy a private ranch to live at, free from the evils of modern society. Because you're a recruiting at a college, your actually target is the students's parents, but you should never directly contact them or allow them to get a hint of what's going on. Emphasize the importance of raising money.

Now you have an isolated following and a ranch. Apply for tax exemption status. Get it. Maintain a monopoly on transportation, and use your followers for cheap labor. Have an elite circle of guards/advisers/preachers that you treat well and pay, while abusing everyone else. From there, your only new followers will be the children of your current followers. If you're going for a long-term Kingston Clan type-cult, take control of their education. Indoctrinate them from an early age. If you're going for a Jim Jones "live fast die young" type-cult, just use them as cheap labor and hostages.

Money is important to maintaining control. Faith is what gets your cult started, but money is what keeps it running. Like I said before, use followers for cheap labor, Make sure that they all apply for whatever welfare benefits are available to them, and then collect the money for yourself. People are a good currency. Either sell them to drug cartels, or distribute girls to your important followers as "wives" to reward their loyalty. Keep most of your people living in squalor while you leech their savings dry. In public ceremonies, pressure them into signing their assets and power-of-attorney away to you.

Ideally, you will never be wanted by the police. The Kingston Clan's patriarch, John Ortell Kingston, managed to settle out of court for every crime he was accused of. This ties in to controlling the money. However, if you are wanted, don't fret. Mexico is a great place to hide while evaluating your options and getting your ducks in a row. From there, there are plenty of countries that don't extradite to the US. I hear that Ecuador is fine this time of year.

If you've done your job right, you'll live comfortably for the rest of your years. Your name will fade into obscurity as the cult you abandoned comes apart at the seams.

 LoneLictor wrote:
I suggest that you declare that you've found a lost Bible passage, distribute flyers around your college, and start a cult. Getting the first few followers is hard, but persistence is key. If you make your pitch to enough people, some are bound to fall for it. Once you get a dozen or so members, it's smooth sailing.

Towards the group as a whole, be vague and enigmatic. Give most of your declarations through followers, but when you do give a speech yourself, be as fiery and passionate as you can be. Regularly ask your followers to privately confide in you. Act as a sort of demented therapist. Use the experience to gain their trust or blackmail them if need be.

Eventually you'll hit that magical number. This number varies from group to group, but you'll know when you hit it. It's where you have plenty of followers, but you don't have so many that you get media attention. Media attention will whittle away at your following. Concerned parents will come rushing to "deprogram" their children. As such, once you hit the magic number, you have to act immediately.

Say you've found another new Bible passage. Order your followers to raise money, so that you can buy a private ranch to live at, free from the evils of modern society. Because you're a recruiting at a college, your actually target is the students's parents, but you should never directly contact them or allow them to get a hint of what's going on. Emphasize the importance of raising money.

Now you have an isolated following and a ranch. Apply for tax exemption status. Get it. Maintain a monopoly on transportation, and use your followers for cheap labor. Have an elite circle of guards/advisers/preachers that you treat well and pay, while abusing everyone else. From there, your only new followers will be the children of your current followers. If you're going for a long-term Kingston Clan type-cult, take control of their education. Indoctrinate them from an early age. If you're going for a Jim Jones "live fast die young" type-cult, just use them as cheap labor and hostages.

Money is important to maintaining control. Faith is what gets your cult started, but money is what keeps it running. Like I said before, use followers for cheap labor, Make sure that they all apply for whatever welfare benefits are available to them, and then collect the money for yourself. People are a good currency. Either sell them to drug cartels, or distribute girls to your important followers as "wives" to reward their loyalty. Keep most of your people living in squalor while you leech their savings dry. In public ceremonies, pressure them into signing their assets and power-of-attorney away to you.

Ideally, you will never be wanted by the police. The Kingston Clan's patriarch, John Ortell Kingston, managed to settle out of court for every crime he was accused of. This ties in to controlling the money. However, if you are wanted, don't fret. Mexico is a great place to hide while evaluating your options and getting your ducks in a row. From there, there are plenty of countries that don't extradite to the US. I hear that Ecuador is fine this time of year.

If you've done your job right, you'll live comfortably for the rest of your years. Your name will fade into obscurity as the cult you abandoned comes apart at the seams.

Yeah, that's actually a really good plan. The way human minds work make this easy. At the beginning you can get a few people to listen to what you have to say, just casually. Then because there are already people 'believing' you, some people will actually start believing you. Then the initial ones will start actually believing you, or at least be bound by social inertia into doing whatever you want anyways because they were part of the initial group and saying that you are wrong at that point will amount to admitting they were wrong, which most people would rather die a slow starvation death on your badly run ranch than actually admit to.

I started a sociology degree back in the early 90s.
Gave it up after working out that being a poor student just wasn't for me (and I didn't get on with the major political bloc at the student level - damn bleeding heart hippy lefties).
I didn't know WHAT I wanted, but I was damn sure that the uni life wasn't it.

I had a lengthy speech offering all sorts of advice and 'wisdom', but then I decided to take a different approach...

Tell us about yourself, who is cheesecat, what makes him tick, what does he like, dislike, what do you want to do with your life (I don't mean just job wise, I mean your aspirations, your 'bucket list'), what do you think you would regret on your death bed if you didn't do? etc.

.

Im getting my sociology degree and while every day I doupt it, I never stop. I love this discipline. If you go beyond masters level you can do very good. Heck, In Santa Cruz im going to be working in a "Lab" for tenured proffessors helping them with their reasearch, and im excited.

 LordofHats wrote:
Join the Mobile Infantry to impress girls. Would you like to know more?

Best advice in this thread.

But, if you're interested in sociology, check out social psychology. Air Force Research Labs is currently looking for social psychologists with experience in attribution theory for some very cool research. Sociologists, on the other hand, are valued...nowhere.

https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWebHost/jobdetails.aspx?partnerid=25614&siteid=5248&jobId=258515

This position will support a basic research program within in the Air Force Office of Scientific Research "Trust and Influence" portfolio, which seeks to provide the empirical foundation for the science of reliance and contemporary influence. The research is focused on the science of influence effects, particularly the psychological and behavioral impact of directed-energy weapons at the individual level, and on understanding the cognitive and social avenues of influence in different cultural groups.

You get to investigate how people feel about fething LASER WEAPONS. Best job...EVER.