I need the advice of NS

Agate420Got a meeting setup today to see if there is a way to kind of treat my school as a tech school, mainly focusing on industrial and business skills that i can engage in. Rather than going to algebra 2 and thinking about how these numbers don’t exist and how i’m never gonna think about this a week from now. At the end of the day i will be getting a highschool education.

The plan with the camper is to work my ass off all summer for the funds and then this fall design and build one with my buddy. I don’t know how else to put it other than he is a “garage kid” hes been designing and making things since his whole life and knows everything about electronics craftsmanship and engines. I plan on dropping atleast 7k on a camper we custom build so i can get a living space that i designed rather than buying a stock one.

I have also been looking a lot into trade school after this thread.

Agate420Got a meeting setup today to see if there is a way to kind of treat my school as a tech school, mainly focusing on industrial and business skills that i can engage in. Rather than going to algebra 2 and thinking about how these numbers don’t exist and how i’m never gonna think about this a week from now. At the end of the day i will be getting a highschool education.

The plan with the camper is to work my ass off all summer for the funds and then this fall design and build one with my buddy. I don’t know how else to put it other than he is a “garage kid” hes been designing and making things since his whole life and knows everything about electronics craftsmanship and engines. I plan on dropping atleast 7k on a camper we custom build so i can get a living space that i designed rather than buying a stock one.

I have also been looking a lot into trade school after this thread.

CowboySkibophonestly id love to give some give some "hell yeah follow ur dreams" advice but like hear me out I'ma tell u how do make it

all this stuff IS feasible and I think u can make it OP, butttt it requires helllla money, I took a similar path after my freshman college year when I dropped out, bought a van, converted it, and traveled a bit but it just got too expensive

so ur about to be 17, so seems like you got like a year and a half TOPS left in high school...I think it would be way more worth it to finish high school out and work as much as you can and stack ur bread so u will be secure on the road, will save you so much time and money that you otherwise would be spending hassling with GED shit. I mean yeah I get you high school is shitt and living with parents sucks but for a year and a half is worth the reward of being more secure in the future.

vans require a lottt of maintenance especially if u get a ford (my transit burned thru 3 automatic transmissions)

DONT GET A FORD TRANSIT CONNECT

get a used Toyota truck with Sub 120k miles, treat her right and she'll run forever. truck campers are easier to build out to avoid mold and stagnant air in a van. Honestly get a basic ass camper shell and build from there, don't get caught up in pre built campers cuz they'll fuck ur gas mileage

Honestly the biggest thing is making sure you have enough money, cuz living in a vehicle is not all the glitz and glamour you see online, its ugly, stressful, uncomfortable. but its also a fucking blast and you'll have some of the coolest experiences of ur life.

ski industry jobs might not pay as well as you hope, so be prepared to look for another job that pays well once you're out there that'll allow you to ski and maybe even give you a spot to park ur. rig, like working at a hotel or something. idk tho being a lift op pays pretty well so feel it out as u go

Hopefully there are some helpful bits in these ramblings. I hope all works out for u OP!

r00kieWhy did someone thumbs down this lol. That last bit. I'm loving skiing way more now that it's not my primary job. I work, make enough for my season pass and few other lift tickets through the year and have skied more and am skiing better than ever. For jobs, I'm most jealous of my EMT friends. Work two 24 hour shifts a week and have ample time to spending skiing or with their families. Not a terrible career with a clear path upward, not a daunting education path, etc. Just gotta see a lot of shit. Like, a lot. For someone young looking to vanlife it in a new area, probably a pretty good gig.

r00kieWhy did someone thumbs down this lol. That last bit. I'm loving skiing way more now that it's not my primary job. I work, make enough for my season pass and few other lift tickets through the year and have skied more and am skiing better than ever. For jobs, I'm most jealous of my EMT friends. Work two 24 hour shifts a week and have ample time to spending skiing or with their families. Not a terrible career with a clear path upward, not a daunting education path, etc. Just gotta see a lot of shit. Like, a lot. For someone young looking to vanlife it in a new area, probably a pretty good gig.

r00kieWhy did someone thumbs down this lol. That last bit. I'm loving skiing way more now that it's not my primary job. I work, make enough for my season pass and few other lift tickets through the year and have skied more and am skiing better than ever. For jobs, I'm most jealous of my EMT friends. Work two 24 hour shifts a week and have ample time to spending skiing or with their families. Not a terrible career with a clear path upward, not a daunting education path, etc. Just gotta see a lot of shit. Like, a lot. For someone young looking to vanlife it in a new area, probably a pretty good gig.

eheathOnly a very small % of ski industry workers make a life time career and most of them have college degrees (engineers, business, marketing, accounting, HR, communication). This goes for resorts, brands, media, etc basically every ski industry job other than being a groomer.

You should 100% finish high school, having a GED immediately puts you below those who finished high school, showing you can complete something as simple as high school is very important to employers. College on the other hand is more of an option, maybe a tech school would interest you more, but IMO you're making a pretty radical decision based on almost zero knowledge/information.

skiermanYEAH MAN, RACKING UP 50K IN DEBT ON A BULLSHIT DEGREE IS LIKE SUCH A GOOD MOVE!

eheathyou dont even read posts anymore, do you?

GnomesAreRealfinish school no matter what, college too. If you drop out it's gonna be 'lit' the first few years then you'll become an adult without any real aducation. You're one back injury away from not being able to work most ski industy jobs.

BearsOnKetaminedude it’s just one more year and a highschool diploma will take you so much further. The investment of 1 more year for that piece of paper is so worth it. Even if the job doesn’t require it i’m sure you can get some benefits from having one.

Agate420Plan right now is to crank my ged out by may of this year so i can start tech school a year early. I have the ability to graduate but if i don’t need a diploma i don’t really want to spend 8 hours a day 5 days a week for 63 more weeks wasting my time.

supremeblienteleits not a waste of time homie, GED should only be a last resort if u dont meet ur expected graduation date. graduate

Agate420Algebra 2 is a waste of my time and i refuse to believe otherwise, not one adult i have talked to has told me that they’ve used algebra 2 after highschool. Ged also allows me to start welding school early so i will have a associates degree by the time i’m 19.

C.R.E.A.MI use a few of the concepts from algebra 2 every day. Perhaps it's the adults you are talking to, were they doing jobs your interested in, or like working at a grocery store?

Agate420Algebra 2 is a waste of my time and i refuse to believe otherwise, not one adult i have talked to has told me that they’ve used algebra 2 after highschool. Ged also allows me to start welding school early so i will have a associates degree by the time i’m 19.

ASSholebomber22A lot of algebra and trig involved in welding and fabrication

Agate420pretty much just easy stuff, geometry and trig which i passed last year and 2 years of secondary schooling to teach me what i don’t know

Agate420Like my therapist, mom and all the people telling me that a 2 year college will get me somewhere in life

**This post was edited on Feb 16th 2023 at 3:09:52pm

supremeblienteleits not a waste of time homie, GED should only be a last resort if u dont meet ur expected graduation date. graduate

C.R.E.A.MYou mean all the people who care about you or have your best interest at heart or have lived more life then you?

Being 17 is hard because you start to get a taste of the reality of the challenges you face as an adult but running away to try and live in your childhood more is not going to bring your childhood back, or set you up to feel better about yourself in the future. You know what's harder then being 17? Being 18, and then 19, and so on.

Take it from someone who took all their 20s figuring this out, I thought I could be a weed entrepreneur and you know what, I did. but I took what I loved at the time (weed) and turned it into work (lame as fuck) and ruined it for myself. So it was back to the drawing board at 28 working an entry level job in finance with a bunch of 22-23 year old kids who listened to their parents.

I busted my ass for the last 6 years and now I have a kick ass career and I can ski whatever ski I want have whatever outerwear I want go to any resort in any country I want. The reason I can do that is because I put in the work and the only thing I wish I had done was this exact thing 5 years earlier.

My .02 best of luck to you.

theabortionator@Agate420

Will you be alright? Probably. Would it be better to finish and get the diploma? Probably. A year seems a lot bigger when you're young honestly.

If you dip out getting into trades and learning skills is good. Also the kind of work where you're much less likely to get hassled about school. It's more relevant experience.

If you can apprentice any good skills or get a job with some solid people that will teach you do it. If you work hard and do your job people will teach you shit. Some places more than others. Just do your job and don't complain if you're doing some seemingly trivial jobs. Gotta start somewhere.

Welding is great. Personally I don't want to do it every day though. Def would want to end up in some production shop that cranks out a bunch of the same stuff. Can pay well though. Versatile skill for sure.

End the end of the day you're going to do what you're gonna do. The advice seems to be a decent consensus on blasting through shool, taking minimal credits to graduate and moving on. But if you're not going to you're not going to. Best of luck. You'll figure shit out. Just work hard and don't burn bridges. Especially when you're young and relatively unskilled. If somebody gives you a job, and they're teaching you things. Stay at it for a while and learn. Worst thing people can do is burn those first bridges. When looking for a job it's pretty damn nice when you can list your last boss, and he'll tell them good things about you. Burning bridges will get you. It's a big world but a small world.

Good luck man!

@

ASSholebomber22Isn't old man advice wild? I had a similar experience. Idk about you but everyone gave me the same advice and when you're that age you genuinely believe you know better. Some of us are just harder learners than others I guess lol

It'll be alright for this kid tho. When he's 25 and sick of being treated like a child or a crackhead, he may start to consider what he needs to do to get the office job that keeps him inside away from the welding fumes. But it's impossible to try and dangle that carrot now

Agate420Algebra 2 is a waste of my time and i refuse to believe otherwise, not one adult i have talked to has told me that they’ve used algebra 2 after highschool. Ged also allows me to start welding school early so i will have a associates degree by the time i’m 19.

jimbobsI use everything from addition to Calc 4 for my engineering classes and job, including Algebra 2. Trig is literally essential.

You've got your entire life ahead of you to ski, man. Waiting a year probably feels like an eternity to you now, but in the big picture it's not a significant loss. Put in the effort to graduate. Build the foundation now, so you can maximize your skiing long term. You'll thank yourself for working hard now for the rest of your life, I promise.