Originally Posted by E2CMaster

For those who posted Petroleum Engineering as the "big money ticket", there is a similar thing in that field to aviation.

Start off at a service company, and try to get on with a major.

If you don't get on with a major in 3-5 years, you get branded a service company "lifer" and would take a major pay hit to got to a major at first. So a lot never leave.

I made $115k or so last year working for Baker Hughes. (Service Company).
I was on the road 330 days last year. I had 20 actual days off all year, weekends, vacation, holidays all together.

I was also working 14-18 hour days, 90+ days without a day off. And the second a customer so much as balked at the bill or "your trucks left ruts on the access road" they would dock half your pay (half-ish was salary, another half was "operations bonus", so ****ty, but legal).

Leave on a "2 week job". Come home 4 months later. Be home 36 hours then go to Africa for 2 months.

F. That. Noise.

If it was $250k a year, it may be worth doing for a year or two to pay off student loans, buy a house cash, etc.

But for $115. No way.

Also, if you think Airline company management sucks.. BHI owes me $6k in pay, and I'm having to sue them for it. Why? Because my company issued laptop, that was 2 years old, has scratches on it, and my company iPhone has a small crack in the screen (can't even see unless it's out of it's Otterbox) and they "have to take the cost of replacement" out of my final check. Nevermind it's lived on oil rigs for the last two years and the scratches are only cosmetic.

Oh, and to buy that exact laptop new from Dell is about $1200.