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Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

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Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#41

Post by ForHackernews »

barry-cotter wrote: post #40

You have six years professional experience in programming. You can probably get onto the Oxford M.Sc. in Software Engineering but the deadline is soon. If you miss it the next one is in March. https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/msc-softwar... Applicants are normally expected to be predicted or have achieved a first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours (or equivalent inter…

This is interesting information, but I don't think it really answers OP's question. They're specifically asking about interesting jobs other than software engineering[0] that don't require a university education, and you're highlighting a chance to get a university education in software engineering.

[0] - "what I would do if for some reason the market for software developers would go down"

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#42

Post by weinzierl » 

  Sewer Diver	       		130000 EUR
  Federal Minister		124046 EUR
  Flight Controller		 78000 EUR
  Offshore Mechanic		 58500 EUR
  Elevator Technican		 52000 EUR
  Driving Instructor 		 47500 EUR
  Garbageman   		         42000 EUR
These are annual gross salaries in Germany. None of the jobs requires college education. To put it into perspective, web dev averages around 55000 EUR here.

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#43

Post by a2tech »

thedevindevops wrote: post #24
Rebelgecko wrote: post #8

Depending on where you are, a tugboat captain can clear $500k/year, and you'll have a 6 figure pension when you retire. Other hands on jobs that have lots of overtime potential (e.g. police or fire department, oil, welding, etc) can also pay really well depending on your level.

How much is a tugboat?

A lot. But most tug captains work for someone that owns the boat and over time might buy into the boat ownership or buy their own. You can still make a big salary while running someone else’s boat though.

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#44

Post by glitchc »

finaliteration wrote: post #2

I know some people who sell cars and don’t have a college degree but pull in close to six figures. They enjoy it but they also work for higher end dealerships and get to take fun cars (like a brand new WRX STI...) for a spin sometimes. Cooking or baking is another option. Some great chefs out there never graduated from college or culinary school. Running a business also doesn’t require a college degree. My wife owns…

Any great chef though is either formally trained or has undergone an extensive apprenticeship under a formally trained chef. Time and again, you can tell the difference in execution between self-taught and formal training, and this goes beyond cooking. The importance of rigour is frequently underestimated.

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#45

Post by a2tech »

arunmp wrote: post #3

Consulting is a lucrative career path that relies less on college pedigrees and more on networking/reputation.

Consulting is a weird place. Just recently I had a customer decide they wanted to hire me full time (I’ve been consulting with one of their internal divisions for awhile, and the company wanted to make me available to everyone) and they balked when they saw I didn’t have a degree. But then I turned the interview into a pitch for using my consulting services for everyone instead of hiring me and the worry about my degree went out the window. Somehow it seemed ok to have a contractor without a degree but not an employee.

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#46

Post by PopeDotNinja »

a2tech wrote: post #43
thedevindevops wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much is a tugboat?

A lot. But most tug captains work for someone that owns the boat and over time might buy into the boat ownership or buy their own. You can still make a big salary while running someone else’s boat though.

I had a friend who got into working on boats like this. She worked her ass off, but made really good money for someone just starting out.

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#48

Post by michaelt »

thiago_fm wrote: post #29

You can work on a bakery, waiter, cleaner, sales and a lot of other jobs. Even if you are an introvert, there will be a job for you. But I don't believe tech is going away. You better work on getting this anxiety away, you were probably thinking "oh shit, things are going down because there are too much clowns getting funding and giving web dev projects that makes no money for them and go bankrupt". I did that freque…

  But I don't believe tech is going away.
Tech doesn't need to 'go away' for the likes of us to have a bad time. All we need is a repeat of the 2000 dot-com bubble bursting.

In that case, companies with solid products at good prices still went bankrupt, as the customers-of-their-customers had trouble and demand for their products dried up; and as investors were spooked out of the entire sector. The damage wasn't limited to the likes of pets.com!

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#49

Post by mdpopescu »

mynameishere wrote: post #34
mdpopescu wrote: post #26

Everything computer-related is best right now. (Web design, UX, "social media person".) However, if for some reason you want to change that, I have found that writing and composing music are also well suited for the same type of mind. (You need imagination, constrained by rules. We're good with rules and, as far as I can tell, we're not bad at creativity either.)

writing and composing music I'm not even sure how to approach criticizing this, because I'm sure you mean well, but if someone aims to make a living in these two things, they better get ready for a lifelong dose of failure.

You're (somewhat) right. I was mainly addressing the "find an interesting job" part, not the "lucrative" one.

There are ways to become successful as a writer, but you need to be either very lucky, or cheat. See [1] for an example of the latter.

[1] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056BMK6K

Re: Ask HN: What other good careers exist for those without a college education?

#50

Post by finaliteration »

baron816 wrote: post #7
finaliteration wrote: post #2

I know some people who sell cars and don’t have a college degree but pull in close to six figures. They enjoy it but they also work for higher end dealerships and get to take fun cars (like a brand new WRX STI...) for a spin sometimes. Cooking or baking is another option. Some great chefs out there never graduated from college or culinary school. Running a business also doesn’t require a college degree. My wife owns…

> Cooking or baking is another option. Celebrity chefs can make a lot of money, but I’m pretty sure just about everyone else is just barely scraping by.

The question said interesting work and/or money. So I guess I went with the “or” rather than the “and”.
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