Year off between high school and uni?

That said, if you have no idea what you want to do in university take a year off and work instead of wasting your money on pointless courses! I've seen it happen and if it turns out that you were just going to university because "that's what you do after high school" without any idea of what you really want to do, you can sink into depression if all you know is school.

3v0 said:

A BS or MS degree is often the difference between an engineer and a tech. Both can be good or horrid jobs. But if you want to be an engineer you need the degree.

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I'm not sure how true that it is, at least in Canada, where each province has its own professional engineers association? I know my Dad has nominated non-uni trained people who have worked in similar fields as him. Of course, the nominees have, in most cases, a decade or so of experience as a tech.

I think Mike Holmes from Holmes on Homes is a great example of the value in exploring a tech (if you can call home construction that) or apprenticeship program vs. uni. Every now and again he calls in an engineer to assess a home reno, but I'm sure he'd easily pass an engineer nomination himself (presuming he hasn't already) if he had the gumption to apply himself to whatever criteria they could throw at him.

We do in Alberta, but I think the members are fighting to keep techs from being able to join right now (or something like that).

I do not have a clue how it works on your side of the boarder. Where I used to work they required a 4 year degree if you wanted to work as a R&D engineer.

We had an astronomer and a math major that were employed as software engineers.

A good friend was a manuf tech and designed test rigs for the assembly lines. He did design work and worked with R&D engineers but it was not a R&D seat.

A friend from school never finished his CS degree. He is very sharp. He interned with Cray during the summer and never returned to school. The lack of degree has keep him in software testing and such even though he is now on his 3rd employer.

I do not care much one way or the other for the profession organizations. Not much use for them.

Hank Fletcher said:

I'm not sure how true that it is, at least in Canada, where each province has its own professional engineers association? I know my Dad has nominated non-uni trained people who have worked in similar fields as him. Of course, the nominees have, in most cases, a decade or so of experience as a tech.

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I plan on going to "university" right after high school. I already have my sights a good one, too. I just need money... any body wish to donate to a cause?