re: A 33 year old has 2 years to train/school for a new career, what do you suggest?

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Crystal Report Writer

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probably on the downslope. Tableau is hot right now.

I have been looking at picking up a skill and moving from FTE status to contract status. Tableau report writing looked to be the easiest skill to pick up that had a lot of contract gigs.

If the OP doesn't mind an intense schooling effort, there are data science programs that are a year. Walk out making $120k.

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Any recommended boot camps?

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Check out youtube videos from "Engineered Truth". He has plenty to say about them. I've read a few articles on the success people have after finishing them, but I don't have specific recommendations as I never considered going that route (I've never really enjoyed programming).

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Take an Instrumentation course. It's a 2-year course that will get you an 80k plus a year job as a technician in a refinery or chemical plant. They usually work 8-5 M-F or 6-5 M-Th.

An Instrument tech basically calibrates, trouble shoots, maintains and replaces gauges and small electrical control instruments that are used by the operators to control the process

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These jobs don't just fall out of trees... You need to have 3-5 years of experience to get hired on by a plant unless you know someone and/or get extremely lucky.

Most of these people start out with contractors doing electrical work and do tech work when it is available. Once they have enough experience they can get a job with a plant or travel doing tech work exclusively.

In two years, you could easily get an insurance license and finish a designation course for a CIC. If you have any experience in sales or anything professional, you could probably negotiate a beginning salary close to your goal at a brokerage firm, retail operation or carrier and make a good living once you get rolling.

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I could make more in industrial but I do well, don't have to worry about losing my job, and pretty much get paid to play Sims all day.

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I take it you are strictly architectural?

Any tips on breaking into it starting at zero?

A lot of people mentioned sales and that can certainly be lucrative but it is absolutely NOT for everyone.

I see you're married so this may not even be an option. But if you can travel a lot, don't mind driving long distances, and can be away for up to a month or more at a time, you could become an insurance catastrophe adjuster in WAY less than two years. And make some good $$ right off the bat. Fantastic way to see the country too and go places you haven't been before, while getting paid to do it.

You would most likely work anywhere from 6-10 months a year, 12-15 hour days, six days a week while deployed. You would also find that you may be home for two or three months at a time. You could even supplement your income when home if you like, say by substitute teaching (which would be a breeze for you I assume) or something else. Or you could just choose to spend that time however you like.

Very cool career if the family life allows it.

Something with the term 'engineering' in it.

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I take it you are strictly architectural?

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frick those guys.

Not really.....well, not all of them. I work for a structural consultant.

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Any tips on breaking into it starting at zero?

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Obviously understanding the basics of drafting/design are required but after that it depends on the sector. As far as the basics are concerned, those are either learned on the job (we pay our interns but they're college students so it's not enough to live on), or at a trade school/community college.

If you plan on working in the commercial sector you need to learn Revit. Every architect we work with has implemented Revit and only one of them went back to strictly AutoCAD. We have some interns helping out now but a few years ago we would have hired anyone that knew how to model in Revit. It's so hard to find people that know the program that we hired an architect (she teaches drafting, I can email you some info if interested) about 5 years ago and have taught her how to model structures.

If you want to chase the money and go industrial it depends on the local market and the potential employer's standards (typically these are the large client's standards) as far as what program(s) are gonna give you a leg up. Some of these were established decades ago so some companies use old programs like MicroStation. I haven't been in industrial for about 8.5 years but when I left they were still struggling with implementing a 3D system, even calling me to stop by and do some consulting on getting things moving in the right direction.

OP. Civil Engineer here and in grad school for MBA. If I had to do it over again, I would go the trade school route, or CM. Installing waste water systems more likely. The corporate environment is soul draining, and more work.