<prompt> Human: I want to address something that I hear constantly from kids getting out of high school. Its bothered me and I think its that many people just dont realise there are ways for someone who cant afford college to get a wonderful career. The trades. For those of you who dont know what the trades are the simple breakdown is plumbers, hvac, electricians, framers, etc. The trades are hurting for people right now. They are looking for dedicated kids coming out of high school who are looking for a career. These are opportunities that will put you through an apprenticeship where you learn on the job and make money doing it. Now I need to make myself clear. When I say dedicated Im talking 10-15 years with the same company. You are gonna be doing this for a while. I work for a small company with 5 employees in the field and the top service tech is making somewhere around 40 an hour in montana. And montana has relatively low average wages. The trades are a great opportunity and I recommend any high school students reading this to look into this opportunity.Also working construction is a good way to make some good money without much training. If you want a good job while going to college Id recommend doing summer work for a construction company.Assistant: My best friend is a master electrician age 33. I dont know exactly how much money he takes home at the end of the day, but my educated guess is somewhere in the low 6 figures.His career progression has been very different than mine, but hes been self-employed through most of his career, and hes gone through a shit-ton of helpers and apprentices.Every single one of those kids thought they were doing to be a successful master electrician one day. Most of them are strung out on meth or in jail. One kid has stuck with it albeit with a different employer; well see about him.My point is that reddits love affair with blue-collar work points people down a path with a million ways to get screwed over, fuck up, or fail, and its not for everyone.Human: If they end up on drugs or in jail, that is of their decision that they would have done no matter the path they took. It wasnt the blue collar work that did it to them. I grew up around the trades and the ones I saw go down the wrong path werent the shining beacons of workmanship and dedication. You could tell the road they were heading down from day 1. We just tried to do what we could to help them not go down that path. What Im saying is that it isnt fair to point to blue collar work and say that their are a million ways to get fucked over when there are just as many ways if not more to get fucked over going the college route. For an example. Drug use is rampant among universities. Especially prescription abuse like adderoll. Those pressures come from living environment and you blue collar job doesnt have anything to do with that while college does affect living environment.We could go back and forth about this all day but the bottom line is your criticisms of blue collar work are very unfair as they they apply equally to the other routes.Im lucky I get to experience both paths since I have worked for hvac companies throughout high school and now am continuing this part time work while doing college so I see both sides. And I can say that the drug pressures are much higher in university.  <response>: HVAC is a different world than the other trades you mentioned - those guys always struck me as having it pretty much together. You mentioned framers, though, and I have to say that I worked on a framing crew for a while in college and those guys were all complete and total fuckups. Even the owner of the company. Especially the owner of the company. 