Life question from a teen

3D VISUAL EFFECTS for movies. my math comprehension can be pathetic at times but have a good eye for motion. i work with former aero space engineers, architects and mathematicians. if you have a healthy understanding of algebra, basic trig and physics a future in the business can be had. it takes a ton of dedication, thick skin and persistence to stay in the game.

job market is international but if you want to stay in the states a lot of work happens in SoCal..

 

John,
Great looking project...I've walked a similar path, but it did take five years of college math before I had a prof who could make "real world" examples and useful math applications. If, and this is a key question looking back, you can get as handle on the two calculus methods of differential, and integral, most of the rest is built upon that foundation. If this isn't interesting to you, then an ME degree will be a long hazing that you'll be moving on from, and may never use the skills learned/suffered through. The tech fab world has opportunities, but there is an artistic and promotional aspect to doing it as the Foose, Barris, Winfield and many others do.

 

Don't take advise from people, you know what you need (not want) to do so do it.
Just remember its business before pleasure (*Hint* New cars=business, Hotrods=pleasure)
but what do I know

 

I'm gonna split what most guys say right down the middle. I have a college degree, it never got me a job. I always wanted to work in a bodyshop, but my parents said "get the sheepskin first". So, I got the degree and spent the next 20 years doing white collar sales jobs, hating it alot of the time. When I hit 40, I decided to pursue my dream, and I worked for cheap at a friends bodyshop. One day I saw someone do a remarkable thing in our shop's driveway. This guy pulled up in a van, started sanding a bumper on one of our (car dealer) customer's cars. He then painted it and left. A month later I was doing the same thing. Now I own a body shop with 2 bodymen/painters and a detail shop with 4 detailers. BUT, I still take my truck out and touchup cars on the dealer's lots. I'm happiest when I'm working with my hands. Managing the shop is the worst part of my job.
So I will say, do what you enjoy. Do what you would do if you weren't charging. Then it's not a job, but a hobby that pays you.

 

Often people say to me that they wish that they could do what I do for a living but believe me they would not want the crap money or the work if they knew how hard it is to make it pay. (I build panels and bodies for vintage and classic cars and hot rods.)

 

No math is over your head. Look at your car, MAN! If you can do that, you can do math. I went to Tech School here in MN for autobody and wanted to build race cars. I had contacts in the business and everything. Now I make false teeth for a living. I love my job, but it's not what I dreamed of doing. There's nothing wrong with whatever you do as long as YOU ARE SATISFIED. F--- everybody else, it's your life. Keep pushing a broom at machine of fab shops, try pushing one at a body shop or engine shop while you get your degree. The more stuff you know the better off you'll be. I'm gathering you speak deutch...being bilingual is going to be a HUGE plus. I buy stuff from a company in Bremen, and just saying "Guten Tag" to them won points for me. If you don't end up building hot rods for a living, do it for fun. Be flexible with your future and you'll find happiness.

And don't worry about math, you can do it.

 

First I really dig your ride ! damn nice !
Ok it sounds like you are one of the few that really has his head on straight ! Take all the education you can get because the working world has changed to damn much over the last few years . you need to know how to do more than body , fab work , paint and all that goes into that field . You are going to want your own business one day and you will need to know how to really run a business to live ! Education is a big thing if that is in your sites down the road . Nothing wrong with serving your country and getting a very good education with out the big loan dragging you down to pay for . Save all the money from when you are in the service so you will have enough to pay for the other education when you get out . Learn all the things you need to know to do damn good work . Just learn the "How To" and be your own inspiration ! Don't follow a "Know it all" or you will be no better that them !
Make your own style of metal work and paint ! Do you own style and you will go a long way . Copping anyone else's work is not the thing to do .
Most of all get that education & drive and stay away from the streets and the night scene and that will get you a long ways in this world !
You sound like you have your goals so go and get them and don't anyone put you down and say you can't do it , you are only dreaming . Dreaming my friend is what make a good fab & paint artist ! Put your mind to it and you will one day have your own business and have your name in the bright lights of a good car mag !

Go for it & good luck !

RetroJim

 

JohnnyChimpo: Check out the April '10 Hot Rod magazine ,a very timely article about how to go about getting hired into a High-performance/fab/race/rod shop...well written by some well known names... ( Foose,Troy ladd,Bodie Stroud,,etc) Tells what they look for in a resume', in an interview,past experience ,etc

Best of luck to you,young man.....Never give up the dream...in life you only get one lap !

Stan

 

Look at the April 2010 Hot Rod Mag. Some interesting stuff on working in the HOT ROD industry. Get an education.

Nick

 

Well Kid,everybody would do it different if they had the chance,you got one chance,like everybody has said the times,the demand,the money in hotrodding today is not there,yeah,the fancy crap you see on tv is just that,TV Todays automotive industry is mostly computer diagnostics,get a good education,make some money and enjoy your hotrod hobby,by the looks of that ride,you"re going to be damn good at it.GOOD LUCK!

 

Hey Kid
great looking project...you've got a lot of talent. That v-12 really makes a statement!

You're getting all kinds of advise here, but you've gotta follow your dreams...You'll be going off to work for several 10's of thousands of hours in your life and if you don't love what you do, every single hour will suck! That being said, it's damn hard to make a decent living building cars but there are all kinds of things you can do to make good $$$$ working with your hands (machinist, welder, electronics, carpenter or whatever) and giving you the time and $$$ to pursue your ambitions. Wishing you all the best in the future!

 

dont let anything tie you down ,if a great job comes along take the change.even if its on the other side of the country....i gave up some pretty cool jobs cause i didnt want to leave my area....and do as much as you can while your young...when your older and have a wife and kid to worry about its hard to take big chances......and follow your dreams!!!!!!!!

 

I must totally disagree that you need a degree to get anywhere. A good work ethic, and good character and attention to detail will serve you well. Be a man of your word, even if it costs you money in the end.
I recently gave a speech at an entrepenurial event, and I told the people there, that after your personal character and integrity, the most important trait you must possess is perseverance. Albert Einstein said, "imagination is more important than knowledge". That quote hangs on the door leading into our shop. Our local Mayor had a credo as well, that "The world expects results, not excuses".
A degree, maybe. Technical skills, sure. Strong work ethic; without it it won't matter how much of the other two you have.

I spent two years at Ramstien, actually lived in Dunzweiler. Loved every day in Germany. Cool ride!

 

Half of the students that I teach in my Basic Automotive class are older guys trying to start a new career after they bombed out of their previous job. The rest are teens just trying to do something other than going to get a degree of some sort. Education is crucial but only a handfull of the people in the hot rod and fabrication business really find success. My suggestion...go into a field where you can make killer money and keep hot rods as a hobby...not a vocation.

 

X 2! Get a match tutor and boost your areas you are week in. Go to school and get a degree in something. Not a good time to look for a job. Considered the Air Force, Army, Navy?

 

hey Johnny chimpoo Next time when i go to Hooters in the near from rammstein i must come over too look at your build looks sweet! greatings from Frankfurt

 

Oh I didnt say but I love what I do despite all the hard work and the crap money!

 

JC, when I was your age the math was "over my head" too. I am now 51; at age 45 I discovered that I WANTED to do the math. I didn't even know the quadratic formula. I started out reading Calculus For Dummies and then went to Schaum's outlines. Had to go back and read through Algebra. I have continued the pattern of reading a "quicky" book for an overall mental picture and then working through a more detailed text. I can now solve most calculus problems, many differential equations, I know a little about vector analysis and am just finishing up Schaum's Strength of Materials after having first read Statics and Dynamics.

All of the cool things that you love are done with mathematics. Become a machinist/fabricator and then while you do that for a living, take your time and learn higher mathematics. Then go get your degree. You will get bored with just being able to build what others design. If you know the design theory and the fabrication skills, you will be a very valuable person. If I can spend 5 years starting at age 45 then you've got nothing but opportunity ahead of you.

If you can get ahold of it, read a book called Mustang Designer. It is about Edgar Schmued who's dad didn't have the money to send him to university so he bought him all of the books instead and he taught himself higher mathematics and aero-engineering eventually imigrated to the USA and ended up working at North American Aviation and was the head designer/ project manager for the P-51 Mustang.

 

Don't conceive a child unless it's been planned.

Talk to others in the field you're interested in that are doing it for a living. Their perspective after doing it for years may be helpful.

You're multi-cultural and I assume you can speak german? That gives you a great in for German companies doing business in the states. And vice-versa.

Think about what you want for a hobby (s) and living. When I was young and worked on cars 12 hours a day I learned about myself - I was burning out on car work. Gave me the motivation to get a degree and good job. My Industrial Technology degree opened the door for my career as a CNC Applications Engineer. But, I got laid off last Feb.

So, forecasting the future of your chosen line of work is important, and hard as hell to do. I still like CNC and I'm still involved with it. It's a good springboard to so many other tech areas - mech eng, CADCAM, marketing, etc.

Schools will always be there. I'm a big fan of night school and adult ed. Keep learning. The days of doing the same thing your whole career are over.

I was sick of school when I was young, but wish I had paid better attention as I got older! A night class every year or so keeps me sharp.

Good luck!

jim

 

Great advice, Retro Jim... Thanks for starting this thread, Johnny. It has us all thinking - I would bet. If you go into the service, my hat is off to you, as the son of a WWII Vet. Honorable thing to do regardless of your motive.

 

Stay straight and true.
To your vision, to your family, to your dreams, to yourself.
best-o-luck

 

Nice build. Sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders. You could get a 2 year degree and then transfer to a 4 year school to get a four year degree. Stay focused and do not complicate your life buy getting married and having kids until you are mentally and financially able. Avoid peer pressure. Take advantage of your bi-lingual skills.

 

Nice car. I thought Rekords were all Opels. Never heard of the Hanomag automobiles until now.
Best of luck whatever road you take.

 

Some very good advice here! The HAMB is one of the greatest places to learn almost anything!

You obviously have skills that most others don't have at your age and asking others for advice and real life experiences is a good thing too. Your hot rod build is looking great and the experience you gain from building a car is one of the greatest learning experiences you can have because you have to figure out everything for yourself. A lot of people say "I can't do that' or "you have a talent for that", but the truth is I never knew anything or learned anything unless I tried to do it and did it. Your life is the sum of those experiences. Knowledge is power too and everything you can learn such as math and engineering opens even more doors for you. If you have that ability plus the ability to work with your hands to use conceptual thought, you are way ahead of the guys that just have a degree and no practical application skills.

Set a goal and work toward your dreams one step at a time. Life is a about choices and a bad decision in any area will pull you down, a series of bad decisions can alter your whole life. Don't waste your energy and spin your wheels! In relationships, be careful that the woman you choose to share your life with shares your goals and is willing to help you acheive them, as you should for hers. I have been married for 36 years and I always say that was one of the best decisions I made.

Now as for me, I worked in the motorcycle business when I started out and soon learned that loving my hobby didn't pay well enough to build a secure future so after about 10 years I opted for an unrelated job that paid well and offered great benefits such as vacation time, health benefits, retirement benefits and stuck with it for 28 years. It worked well for me because I retired this year and am 57 years old and free to pursue my car habit. Although I sometimes wonder if I had taken a different path with school and technical training that I might have acheived higher goals, but I am happy because I always look forward and never backwards. I have had a great life and I doubt if I would change anything.

You can do anything you want and I think the sky is the limit for you. If you ever want to go to a Hot Rods school near an Air Force base, check out the Hot Rod Institute http://www.hotrodinstitute.com/ in Rapid City , SD which is the home of Ellsworth Air Force Base. Here are some pics I took of their facility last May.

Our first stop was at the Hot Rod Institute http://www.hotrodinstitute.com/ in Rapid City where they teach all areas of Hot Rod construction. Founder Doug LaRue gave us a great tour of his facility. We were overwhelmed at the sheer number and scope of the projects that they were building. It was great to see what the next generation of Hot Rodders were building and it had all of us wishing we could go back to school right there!
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
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Check out these projects!
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<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Lake Area Roadsters Reliability Run in the Black Hills 2009</td></tr></table>
Stay tuned, more to come!

 

Are you discussing this with your parents? They should be your primary source of advice. As of 2009, your father can assign his GI Bill Educational Benefits over to you...this is a $45K value. There are many fields of endeavour that will provide you with the earnings to have a very comfortable lifestyle and still allow you to enjoy hot rodding as a hobby. BTW, I lived in Miesenbach for four years. I wish I could pull in to the Diner Box in Ramstein Village for a Rindswurst and Bröttchen right now.

 

I can say that after being through tech school myself, being an ASE certified master tech, GM certified tech and mechanic for over 15 years out of tech school, my experience was the same as many of these other guys. Working on cars after work was not very enjoyable . Also in pay, techs have to invest a lot in tools and education for not such great return. After changing my line of work, I really love working on cars again. I have passion for it again. If you can make a career out of something with cross over skills that's a good place to be. For example, a mechanical engineer can apply his resources to building cars after work and has the money for the Hot Rod to start with.

 

That's the solution to all worthwhile endeavors.

 

I'm on Storm King's side on this. I dropped out of university after three years and have since learned a whole lot of skills (including tool and die making, auto mechanics, production engineering, Marketing, etc. without a formal degree.) What's it got me? Living and/or working in places that I only dreamed about when I was in H.S. in SoCal, the ability to communicate in around eight languages, friends all over the world and life experiences most read about in books!

Storm King's 100% right on having the right attitude as being they key to success. I think his comments about the degree/skills is most valuable.

Looking back, the only thing not having that piece of paper prevented me from doing was teaching at universities (I still get offers) and working for certain government organisations. I also see a lot of MBAs flipping burgers these days...

Just remember, whichever way you jump, you will learn something that you can use in the future. Just keep the desire to learn for a lifetime and don't lose your youthful passion. We live in an ever-changing world, and have to adapt our living to meet those challenges. At 57, I'm still doing so and wouldn't have it any other way.

I think that rod you're building is just too cool!

Hope that helps. Tschuss.

 

Thank you guys. Mixing everyone's opinions and advise is really interesting and very helpful. I was talking to a few people and im looking into mabe a civil engineering degree and also taking some mechanical engineering classes mixed in. That would get me a decent job opportunity and it would let me become an officer in the reserves. That would give me a decent amount of money for the time i put into it and a good deal of experience from being previously enlisted. My retirement would also be fairly nice as an officer. What do you guys think of that? Does that sound realistic?

And ill post up my build soon. I need to get a little more work done before its HAMB worthy. haha

 

Getting all the education you can now is only going to benefit you later. Engineering is good, but you need to handle the math and science. You can apply engineering to many fields. The AF has many engineering opportunities, as officer or as civilian employee.