Simple options. --- Get a very marketable degree (as aforementioned) and earn $45K+ to start with a decent future. --- Or try to trade, burn up all your $$$ and become a grocery bagger at Target for $12K, while you lick your wounds. This is the 98%+ path for trader wannabes. It is almost as hard as planning to become a professional gambler. How many high school studnets plan to enter the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, boxing, etc.. Let's say there are 10,000 well paid athletes in the USA. And perhaps 1,500 are replaced annually. And let's say that there are 1,000,000 HS students graduating annually who also seriously played a major HS sport. So, chances are about 667 to 1 they will succeed. So for the other 666... Or those people who responded to polls that their retirement plan is playing the weekly lottery. If you have any other good option that planning on trading for a lucrative living, jump at it. Trading only makes sense as a hobby for people who already make a living, and have capital THEY CAN AFFORD TO LOSE. When planning to DEPEND on trading $$$ to, your odds go way down (it is called "scared money").
You guys keep on pushing college and I understand that I am young and all and that it is definetly a path I should take but I am still not sure if it is the path that I want to take.
It's 2009 not 1999. He is likely to be unemployed or underemployed if he relies on a degree. But he is guaranteed to be in debt. I would stick with the computer tech trade. Maybe get a quick computer degree via online while focusing on training courses & certifications. Forget daytrading for now.
Nobody is hiring college grads and starting them at $45k anymore except for nursing majors. Those days are long over. Maybe $25-30k if he's lucky.
Wrong. Very wrong. The majors I listed are earning this kind of money, as long as a GOOD SCHOOL and GOOD GRADES. And hiring is obviously down due to the economic situation, but this will not remain. Try stopping by a very good engineering school (like Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh, MIT or other top 20-40 schools) and ask if starting offers have been cut from $45K to your levels. You will be laughed off the campus.
At one point I was making $25/hr but that was a contract temp job good benefits, I hope to find a job like that again someday.
Those schools cost more per year than the annual salary out of college. And they are not exactly easy to get into, I highly doubt they are an option for the OP.
state schools with good CompSci/Engineering programs like Penn State, U of Ill (Urbana-Champaign), Rutgers and others are less than 11K a year and are top schools. And to out of state students for perhaps 20K or less, if you happen to be unlucky in the state you reside. You don't need a top 5 school, just top 30-40. One only has to get some of the college guides at Amazon.com, and look
LOL, it's funny, you actually mention some schools I know well. You won't be guaranteed a job as an engie out of them, in fact it was tough to land a decent gig even 10 years ago, so nowdays it's a real battle. There is a reason why American students started turning sour on Engineering degrees. It's called HB-1 Visa. You originally mentioned different schools which are very expensive but do have better placement services. They are also tough to get into. IMO, if you already got something going on, you're better off investing time & effort into that instead of going to college. The days of college=good job & future are long gone, unless you go to an Ivy and/or are privileged. Don't expect the system to make sure you land all right.
I think "The system" is really messed up as I said before I have been at a number of company's I have been at Moody's Investment services HQ in NY before the moved to 8 World Trade Center, for a bit of time as a consultant to fix printers, I see what's going on with corporate america it's very scary. The had like a ton of foreign workers over at moody's the outsourced kind.