My stupid welder

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 09-30-2009 23:24

Hi Metarinka!

Please don't get offended but, at what age did you start welding for a living, and where have you worked as a welder, and what type of field welding have you done?

I'm asking this because at not yet 23 years young, It's kind of hard for me to understand your statement saying: "I'm glad I did my time as a welder and will carry those skills for my life." In other words, you make it read like if you've been welding for a living since grade school or even kindergarten!!! ;)

Btw, it is true what you said about barely skimming the surface of welding knowledge as it holds true for myself also, and I have more than twice your age of being an avid student of the sciences involved with welding engineering!!! Still, it's good that you recognize that, and I hope you will still recognize the same at twice your present age, because one will only continue to learn as long as they remain teachable!!! The worst that anyone can do to themselves is to think that they no longer need to continue to learn new perspectives in their chosen field or to limit themselves only to one specific field alone IMHO...

I can read with confidence that you will not be one of these individuals since you have exhibited a passion and drive for learning more and more ever since you started to participate in here as well as progressed in your studies at school... What you are doing at work right now is learning even more and soon enough, you will be ready to concentrate on learning even more advanced skill sets which is why I think you will be successful in you endevours whichever path you choose for your Masters degree.

However, you must also get a budget together and commit to saving a certain amount of money each month while your presently working in order to pay for some of the ancillary expenses that will be rearing their ugly heads when you do decide to persue your Master's because by the time you do so, you will not be able to completely fund all of your ancillary expenses with scholarship money alone, even if you have a 3.0 GPA or above which would qualify you for all types of scholarship money to persue your Masters but, just short in what is necessary for you to do so without having another revenue stream available to you that would not require you to give up some of your time working somewhere in order to do so and putting you in a position where you will age very fast from all of the stress involved from studying for your Master while simultaneously working to afford to achieve this very noble goal in the first place.

One more thing, don't try to rush all of this to get it over with so you can live the life you envision, because that is just someone else's fantasy!
This is just my own opinion so, if you choose not to agree with me, I can certainly understand whichever way you lean but I know that for me, I had a very productive day if I learned something, anything no matter how far it may be from the relevance of what would be considered a normal learning environment if one can even concieve such a notion!
I learn more from interacting with all kinds of individuals ,in different situations by always trying my best to keep an open mind although there are some days when I might just wake up and forget to unlock my mind which usually gets me in whole lot of trouble!!! ;) ;) ;)

From what little I know about you, I hope that I'm correct in presuming that you still find the time to keep your manual dexterity skill sets as tuned in as possible which is a very good thing to do because you never know when you might want to work a little bit harder in the future by starting your own business which seems to be something I can envision you embracing sometime in the future so, keep at it, and stay away from bad influences because at your age there are many ways to inadvertently ruin your career on account of making some bad choices by thinking no harm would result of making those type of choices!!! Don't fool yourself into thinking along those lines - CAPECHE???

I envy you because, this is the dawn of the "fusion" age which I call it, because of the fusing of many different sciences together and put to use in such a manner which will soon be followed by unlimited amounts of new discoveries which were unthinkable in the sunset of this age of information and technology advances or so we thought! So go out there and make us proud that we knew you when you were still developing yourself into someone with the right stuff to go beyond and rise above the status quo! ;) ;) ;)

Respectfully,
Henry

By Metarinka (****)

Date 10-02-2009 00:14

Thank you for the words and advice. it is always welcomed

no offense was given. I've welded for 7 years and was welding until march when I was laid off. I had to pay my way through school and have had a job ever since I was 12 save for 3 months off this summer (very needed).

over the years I've worked for lemme see, 2 artists, a manufacturer of high temperature industrial ovens, an air compressor manufacturer, a restaurant appliance manufacturer. and I worked in a machine shop where I mostly programmed CNC machines and palletizers and fabricated fixtures when called on. I did field work for the artist, and frankly of all the jobs that was the most demanding welding skill wise, as we weren't fabricating simple or even logical structures and the demands were much stricter. The majority of my experience is GTAW, GMAW and FCAW doing structural or sheet. Frankly GTAW is my favourite process and if I had my way I would never do any other type of welding and don't care for stick. (personal preference). Also it is one of the processes I excelled most at both in school and work and I was assigned the task of teaching several welders how to walk the cup last year (which I enjoyed).

By all means I never meant to imply that I think I'm a top dog welder, either in experience or skill. In fact the one thing I wish I had more of is fabrication experience as there's simply no way to learn that besides watching and doing and picking up tricks from veterans over the years. However In comparison to most engineers, I feel I'm really glad I was able to work on the other end of the blue prints, and spend my 40+ hrs a week laying down beads. I enjoyed working as a welder and would go back if the need arose. Good comment about keeping up the manual skills, I'm saving up for a TIG welder right now, so I can go back to doing art (which got me into welding in the first place).

In terms of school. I was planning on pursuing a masters while working full time. Because the types of companies I work for will cover the tuition as long as I work full time. It will take longer that way but I figure I can do one class a semester and be done in 3-4 years. Now that I'm out of school I've began to miss learning so much condensed technical knowledge everyday.

By FixaLinc (****)

Date 10-01-2009 02:33

Well that would have been something to see sounds like. Lots of center pivot irrigation systems out here but I haven't seen any robots that can set them up in the field yet :) A few that were making sprinklers here years ago went out of business last time the economy went south and grain prices were bottomed out. Bad economy and poor sales somehow robots will never be able to control that? The price of manufactured goods never goes down no matter how it was made either.

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 10-01-2009 03:26

Hey Fixalinc,

Robots are not readily applicable for field use although there have been some recent strides in aplying them for use in shipyards..

No, robots will continue to be used in manufacturing facilities for the most part where the emphasis is to improve productivity rates for assemblies that can be welded together with a precise amount of repeatability at the present time so if I were a field hand, I wouldn't worry about some system being developed to replace me for quite some time...
And even if some remarkable breakthrough does occur by the Japanese, Germans or whoever, someone still has to program and operate these automated systems and that's where the future welding technicians will come in to step up and take that role!!!

Humans will always have to be around to make sure everything is working according to plan and when it doesn't then the value of the knowledge you have accumulated through years of training and experience will be in such demand that the level of respect will always be high enough for you to make a decent living being that person!!!

"The price of manufactured goods never goes down no matter how it was made either." I respectfully disagree with that statement and it's been proven to be just the opposite in many different applications so, I'm not even going to dignify that statement because it reads as if your convinced that is just the way things are.

Respectfully,
Henry

By FixaLinc (****)

Date 10-01-2009 05:52

The end price to the consumer never goes down unless the quality goes also seems to be the norm today. So what happens when all these robots form a union ? :)

By Metarinka (****)

Date 10-01-2009 23:49

I think in grand ways the price has always been going down for just about anything but staple commodities.

200 years ago aluminum was so hard to extract that the top of the washington monument was crowned with a piece of polished aluminum (which at the time was more expensive than gold)

similarly 60 years ago, computers were only a luxury universities and governments could afford.
20 years ago very few could afford cellphones (or the contracts)

when a new product comes out the prices always starts high then goes down until it becomes an established product, at which point marginal reductions are made and the prices are dependent on raw material and manufacturing costs (which may or may not be reducable any further)

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 10-01-2009 06:51