Education Background vs. Career

[Finner]

Education: BA Economics, (just finishing 3rd year)
Career: Investment Representitive for a major discount brokerage
Related: OT: I'm tired of school after 3 full years so now i'm working full time and taking night classes to finish my degree. On Topic: Kind of, some of my various classes help a bit but most is learned through the job.
What I do: Place orders for equities, bonds, mutual funds, GIC's, options, etc. Bunch of other stuff to do with money. I wanna end up a full serve broker.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Do you work for Golder by any chance?

No.

SNC-Lavalin Environment

Formerly Morrow Environmental Consultants.


Golder is a good company though. They do a lot more habitat work, which I find more rewarding from a personal stand point.

[Antithesis]

Education: BEd in Secondary Education from the University of Alberta

Career: Teacher

Related: Indeed

What I Do: Teach stuff?

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

Education: BSC Archaeology, LLB

Career: Manager of QA lab for video game developer

Related: Post secondary didn't train me directly, but gave me the skill set, maturity, and communication skills to suceed.

What I do: Test video games, and manage people who test video games.

How do you do that? Make sure they don't run out of jolt cola.
What do video game testers do when they goof off? Just wondering because a lot of people play games when they goof off.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Education - B.Sc. Environmental Science, Habitat Technician Certification

Career - Environmental Consultant

Related? - Yes (the first part anyway)

What I do -

Collect water, air, and soil samples from contaminated sites.
Analyze the lab data.
Write reports to clients and recommend remediation.
Maintain upkeep on remediation systems and oil/water separators.

How did you get into this? IE: Was it through Sait?, what High School courses/marks were required? Is the money good? etc.This sounds like something I would be very interested in, ad I'm just getting ready for post secondary education this year. Thanks.

[Burninator]

Education: Architectural Technology Diploma

Career: Architectural Technologist

Related: Bang on

What I Do: I work in an Architects office doing computer drafting. (except today because I am sick at home)

[Flames2007FIRE IT UP]

I think if you go to University and get a degree or SAIT and get a diploma, it shows whoever is hiring you,that you have a lot of basic skills (meeting deadlines, working under pressure, doing what you are asked to do, etc) and a maturity/reliability level. It also shows you are 'smart.' If you don't go to post-secondary I m not saying you don't have these qualities, you just have to prove you have them, unfortunately it is tough to get those opportunities. The other issue is most people make the choice of who to hire have some post secondary education, know what it is about, and respect someone who goes through it.

[TimSJ]

Education :Automotive Marketing (basically businnes ger toward the car business) never finished though i think i had 3 courses left..

Career: Car Sales

Related: for sure

What I Do: Try to take peoples money and sell them a car they can't afford... at least that is what most people say...lol

[peter12]

Education - 3/5 years of a BA Hon in Poli Sci. I keep switching my focus from stats to theory and it keeps costing me time. I want to go on to get either a Law degree or head down to George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.

Career - Research Assistant at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy.

Related? - Absolutely. It's the perfect opportunity for a Poli student.

What I do - I've helped out with just about everything we do. Press releases, editorials, a lot of data entry, some research projects. It's a lot of fun and great experience for my future.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by flameswin

How did you get into this? IE: Was it through Sait?, what High School courses/marks were required? Is the money good? etc.This sounds like something I would be very interested in, ad I'm just getting ready for post secondary education this year. Thanks.

You will need grade 12 chemistry (for some schools, physics is accepted). An interest in biology and physical geography is also helpful, as you will need to take related course in college or university. And as in all science, math is a necessity. You will end up taking stats and calculus. You don't have to be awesome at it, but you need to get by.

It's not the end of the world if you don't have all those things though. I actually took very little science in highschool. Instead, I went to Douglas College (New Westminster, BC), and enrolled in a short environmental program there, and upgraded what I didn't get in high school. From there I transferred to the University of Lethbridge and got my degree in environmental science. Most of my college courses tranferred to the university, to I ended up saving money. All in all, it took me an extra 6 months or so, to finish school with the upgrading and pre-requisites I needed. Not bad actually. I think too many people let what they did in highschool dictate their future. There are ways to get around it.

Having said that, there are people that I work with from various backgrounds. One guy has a chem degree, another majored in agriculture. We have geography and biology majors as well. A couple also have technical diplomas from colleges, which IMO may even come in more handy than degrees. They also take less time to get, and are considered to be a pretty good asset in this field. I would definitely look at technical school programs, and then if you want a degree after that, you can transfer a lot of your credits anyway. There is also a good chance you won't need one.

As for the money, it's pretty good. It's an industry where experienced people are in quite a bit of demand. I'd say it's competitive with any type of private sector industry at the junior level, and has a fairly high cieling for upper-tier levels.

[jayswin]

Flamesaddiction, I found this page on Sait's website. Am I on the right track? Thanks.

http://www.sait.ab.ca/pages/courses/...academic.shtml

[boobaloo]

Education: Respiratory Therapy SAIT
Career: Respiratory Therapist Clinician
Related: You bet
What I do: Think Life Support and anything related to it.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Flamesaddiction, I found this page on Sait's website. Am I on the right track? Thanks.

http://www.sait.ab.ca/pages/courses/...academic.shtml

Looking at this program:

http://www.sait.ab.ca/pages/cometosa...mas/aevt.shtml

It looks a lot like the stuff I did, at both the college and university level. I think it looks like a good program to get your foot in the door.

Notice that it also says that you get a block transfer into Royal Roads University for their 3rd year degree program (a lesser known university for most, but well known in the environmental sector). But also keep in mind that you can negotiate credit-by-credit with other universities as well, and get basically the same thing.

[jayswin]

That looks great. I would just need to upgrade to Pure Math 30 and I should be good, also all my marks are in the high 80's to 90's, so hopefully that would help as it looks like there is a waitlist and "additional criteria" to get in. I'll definitly go talk to a counseller about this next week. Thanks for all your time and help!

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Notice that it also says that you get a block transfer into Royal Roads University for their 3rd year degree program (a lesser known university for most, but well known in the environmental sector).

Isn't Royal Roads a virtual Uni?

[Sylvanfan]

Education - 2 year diploma in Computer Aided drafting and design

Career - Structural Steel detailer/project manager

Related? -It is, but it is absolutely nothing like what I took in school. We use completely different software and what I do is so specialized 95% of what I learned has been forgotten 11 years later.

What I do - Basically I take the architectural drawings, and structural drawings and work them together and have to draw every single piece of steel required for a building. I'm responsible for making sure every thing fits, picking out any flaws in the structure, and having the drawings prepared so that when everything goes to site it fits together. I pointed out discrepancies and flaws on the light towers for the New York Mets new Baseball Stadium that forced them to change the terace and bleachers on the project.

[housejunk]

Education: BsC chemical engineering, LLB (law degree)

NOTE: Engineering was a far more difficult degree than law. Way more class time, lab time, and more difficult exams. Law school had mainly 100% finals, which some people hated, but meant you pretty much had nothing to do all semester except read.

Career: Lawyer

Related: Definitely. Both degrees, in some respects. I act on numerous oil and gas transactions, and my reservoir engineering background is crucial. I'm not sitting around asking people what mudding means, and why sandstone is good and limestone is bad (I've heard that question from a few lawyers).

What I Do: Corporate transactions, regulatory hearings, M&A portfolios, securities offerings. The work is quite dry, but it beats driving out to the field and living in an ATCO trailer for days on end (which I did as an engineer).

[Flickered Flame]

Education: BEd in Secondary Education from the University of Alberta, getting ready to start my masters

Career: Teacher

Related: Yup.

What I Do: Teach junior and senior high computers as well in the virtual school.

[JimmytheT]

Education: BA Economics
Career: Banking
Related: Yes

[edn88]

Education: Economics
Career: Manager, IT
Related: Sort of - cost benefit analysis helps in decision making
What I do: Manage service desk, desktop support and field support for an oil company