Hello;
I'm living in Colorado and do professional carpentry work currently. I am a cabinetmaker, electronics hobbyist, farmer, rancher, and old time oil man.
I went to a College in Rangely Colorado {CNCC} after high school for pre-engineering study in 1980. Colorado School of Mines didn't offer me a good scholarship though and I went to the patch to try to make some bucks and swing it myself. Well wouldn't you know it the bottom fell out of the entire industry that summer after graduation. And I was sunk.
I went to work at a small Gas production company after graduating with a strong GPA. They were a good bunch and the sad thing is the economy forced such a downsize as it did. Then I worked at Halliburton for a year until they were finally squeezed too.
So I farmed and opened a Autobody shop for 10+ years. That was fun and I made enough to return to school interests. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the credits for transfer weren't acceptable since I received the degree from a different school and it had been so long ago. Now I'm wishing to win the lottery to get three classes of Calculus over with and I'll have a double major in Computer Science and Chemistry.
Well long story short. If you have a geniune love for Chemistry be ready to get a job elsewhere and wait it out. College is expensive and I wished I had taken my Geology Professors advise to forget about working and get into Wyoming State for a BS when I was young. It just gets more expensive and more difficult the older you get.
My heartfelt desire to know everything about Chemistry is due to my wish to understand the forces that cause myself and so many others around the world to be aflicted with Genetic disorders of skeletal forms. Soft organs are one thing, skeletal repair or reproductive DNA repair are quit another.
I hope somebody will become the next Madam Curie or Linus Pauling so bad I could cry. Because only the sciences born of the heart's desire to cure really make the world a safer and better place in truth and action. A circus style of public education through display is in poor taste and shows little regard for those conditions.
If I could say anything to young chemists that would make their life wealthier and happier it would be, "Get out there in the summer and get State certified in the trade industries while you know the test subject well already.People like Plumbers and Electricians make good money, and chemistry jobs will always be rare at times."
Good luck and rest easy.
Andy