I went to college for exactly one semester.
At the time, I was pressured into going, by my teachers and my parents who kept telling me that everyone needed to go to college.
At first I went along with it, but after that first semester, I knew it was the wrong choice for me. I didn’t like it, first and foremost, but also I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life. Taking random classes with no purpose is not a smart use of resources. Speaking of resources, it costs an ungodly sum of money to go to college! I felt that trade school was a smarter choice, and left college to study HVAC repair. My parents lost their minds, but I didn’t let it bother me, because even with the base starting pay working for an HVAC contractor I could afford my own apartment. You won’t get rich from working on HVAC repairs, but the industry by and large pays very handsomely. The truth is you can get rich eventually, which is why so many HVAC techs become contractors themselves. In other words, there is a lot of upward mobility in the HVAC industry, but you can;t make it to the top unless you start at the bottom. As it turns out, the “bottom” of the HVAC world still pays a living wage, something not many businesses can say these days. There is no doubt in my mind that I made the right choice, and my folks will eventually see that being an HVAC tech was a smart choice.