Well, a little back ground on my self. I'm 18. Graduated High School at 17. As soon as a I graduated, I got enrolled in the 2 year automotive program at local community college. I got a car when I was 16, and just enjoyed working on it. That was the only thing i've ever really had any interest in, so that's why I wanted to go to school for it. The program i'm in does 8 weeks of school, 8 weeks of full time work, and repeats. I've been through 3 semesters (a little over a year), and I will be graduating in a couple months. But, after doing this as a job for just a year (or so), it's becoming pretty obvious that this is not something I want to do for the rest of my life.

But... one of the required classes was a "Fundamentals of Tooling and Machining" class. That class was the most interesting, fascinating, and enjoyable class i've ever taken. I've always liked fab'ing up my own stuff. But making stuff on a lathe and a mill was just a whole new world to me. I really enjoyed that. We had to do a project on 3 different machines, drill press, lathe, and a mill. I liked running all three machines. None of them were CNC though. It seems like most shops are going to CNC, but I think I would enjoy that just as much.

So I finished that class, and started to look more into what machining classes the school had to offer. They have a 9 month certificate program that the teacher was always boasting about. He said there are several local businesses/shops that are always looking for graduates coming out of this program. It appears that the machining jobs are pretty common around here.

One thing that i'm worried about is getting a job in the field where I have to make the same part, hundreds and thousands of times. Is that kind of job pretty much all that there is anymore?

I'm mostly just wondering if this is something I should look more into based off what i've told you so far. I know i'm not going to be the next Bill Gates, and i'm completely fine with that. I'm just trying to find something that I can enjoy doing for the rest of my life.





EDIT NOTE: I have a friend that's a machinist, and he'll sometimes send me the blueprints (if that's what you call them) of parts he's making and it just fascinates me sooo much. Unfortunately though, he lives 3 hours away or so.