Throw this out there for the OP and anyone else with an IT and or business background looking for a change. Healthcare informatics. Certifications include RHIT which is just a two year degree and RHIA which is four. As the healthcare industry moves to electronic medical records there's a need for a unique skill set of IT and general business knowledge to set these systems up and maintain them. Pays damn well too look at jobs requiring these certifications in careerbuilder for instance. Just a thought.
God, the entire imaging and data management scenario would give me nightmares. I worked for a home builder finance company and it was an absolute nightmare to deal with - and very boring. I could only imagine that being ten-fold in the medical industry. Although a good thing about the medical industry is that they are slightly more cutting/bleeding edge than most enterprises (some exceptions to both extremes for sure though).
I'm in IT and even though there's some pains, I admit that I love it. I'm still unsure if my passion is climbing up beyond leading a small team, but it's a good skill to acquire when I settle. My advice? You're 21, so join a consulting company and travel. After three years, you'll have a network of people and clients and you get to be in a good position on where you want to go. I've been in consulting for three years and the travel has been getting to me, except I'm 31 and considering settling. My alternative is finding work in Europe for a year. Then maybe Asia. Passport? Visa? It's called my work experience and title... As for the nitty gritty of "IT", it's a big field. I know sysadmins get a decent ceiling if they stick to it, but my passion is in evolving technology and using open source frameworks. In an agile environment that believes in agile culturally, it's pretty ****ing interesting and challenging.
Are you sure you're really interested in engineering and not becoming an engineering technologist or a designer? Most well paid engineers don't deal with CAD. I loved the programs you noted above in high school/college until I interned in an engineering firm in which the engineers did their own CAD work and realized it wasn't for me. The work was tedious, uninteresting, and including bonus, I graduated making twice as much as the guys I worked with there. Most of the guys I know who make good money in engineering are either managers or in roles that act essentially as project managers. Unfortunately if you really want to be that close to the designing phase AND make money you'll need to start your own business, which will be very difficult without a solid reputation in whichever field you choose to work in. Again, engineering is not being outsourced, unless you mean from the US to foreign countries. What is being outsourced is the less analytical work like CAD or QAQC.
You hit the nail on the head. I too didn't really enjoy my time as an engineer's assistant (Worked at MW Kellogg, now KBR). The scale of the projects they work on is just not fun... process flow diagrams for a two foot section of piping in a plant with miles and miles. You get the drift. I did enjoy my time as a CAD designer at the home builder, as I do enjoy the design aspect of it but CAD designers are a dime a dozen. And like you said - to make money still dabbling in design you need to own your own business. In a perfect world I'd own my own machining and manufacturing shop and help out medium and small businesses. At this point, I see that as my "second" career. If and when I have the money to buy all of the required machinery and tools to do so, I'd probably bite the bullet. The evolution of 3D printing over the next ten years may drastically change my plans.
