consulting

honestly the older you get the harder it is going to be to take 4 years off and get a degree, if you want the degree you should quit your blue collar job and enroll now

>>1134898
I take classes part time, I plan on going full-time in the fall of 2017. By then I can claim independent on fafsa and maximize grants.

>>1134906

then you could go straight out of school in to a graduate engineering position and your 4 years experience on the line would reflect very favourably versus your cohort which will largely have no real experience

That's by far the easiest path I can see. otherwise you'd need to be looking for like low-tier management positions (eg line supervisor) which is a hard sell at 22 with no other qualifications

>>1134913

But it will also be very difficult to transition from a white collar engineering position to an executive/consultant position.

You need to actively try and steer your career in that direction at every chance you get, even if it would mean stepping down a rung. In general management and engineering do not often cross over.

>>1134924

If you want to go in to independent consultancy I would try a pitch along the lines of improving efficiency on the production side (since that's where your experience lies)

But I would guess that would be very hard to deliver for today's auto makers, which I understand use extremely efficient production lines

>>1134913
I've already been told to apply for a team leader position, managing four lines and about 15 people, with other responsibilities.

I'm just not sure if I want to do it for a year and then peace out, I don't want to get funneled into the company's management.

I'm basically going to be starting with a few gen ed classes done for an undergraduate degree so I don't follow the graduate engineering thing.

A consultant told me to just get a communications degree, but I thought it was a meme degree.

I didn't even know automotive consulting was a thing until he told me about it. I just want to make a lot of money and do something involving the auto industry considering I already have four years experience in it.

>>1134934

there are two paths you can go to white collar, engineering or management

If you want to do engineering get the degree and apply for a graduate engineering role (a junior engineering role for fresh graduates). Your hands-on, relevant experience should help you a lot with this compared to other graduates with no experience.

If you want to go management/consulting I would consider some kind of management training (community college even would be better than nothing) and then applying for a team leader role and climbing the management ladder.

>>1134945
but the company has a socialistic pay scale where senior managers don't make that much and an hourly team leader can make more than their immediate boss

I've heard that a team leaders immediate boss has a starting salary of $50k, where they don't get overtime, they get comp time and you're expected to work 7 days a week without using time off depending on your dept. Then you have to deal with being on an off shift and etc etc.

team leaders make aboutt $20hr give or take a few minor raises (we're talking 5-10c raises)

>>1134950

Yeah, but I'm sure upper management makes much more than upper engineering

Also remember you would not be tied to your current company, with a management qualification you could apply for outside companies or even other sectors than automotive

I guess you could also go for marketing if it appeals to you

>>1134960
I still wouldn't have a degree though, and wouldn't that fuck me in the long term? I just want to make a lot of money and not hate my job.

I do assembly work, I can be content doing boring work all day. I'd rather be content with my job than miserable and rich.