Why I hate my high school guidance counselor

and you should too.

In high school I was real good at math and science, so my counselor told me to go to college and be an engineer. and I still hate her for it. She did NOT tell me to go be a mechanic.

My brother dropped out of college after one semester, and became a mechanic. Now granted, he works crazy hard, and is VERY good.

For work today one of the customers at his shop had him come out for a private track day at Circuit of the Americas. Last week he track prepped about half a dozen customer cars. Today started by him driving down to the shop, picking up the 1000 hp ford GT shop car, and driving it out to COTA. Then he had a big breakfast spread, got a tour of the place, and set up shop in the F1 garages. Watched as various cars blew by. Took hot laps in a bunch of different cars, I still don't have the whole list. The last 3 sessions of the day he got to take the slow shop car, a porsche 968 with tons of suspension work out. The last session there were 2 other cars out there. a 458 challenge and something that I can't recognize pass him.

If I can't have his job, can I at least get some friends that just decide one week to rent out COTA for a private track day?

Oh yeah, and he got paid for all this!!!

Here's some of the pics

anyone know what this white car is? It posted the fastest lap

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u263/icaneat50eggs/2013-05-06215037_zpsbb8fe9c0.jpg

Wowzers.
another reason for me to stay in this field and keep working=]

(Hopefully I'm in the early stages of reenacting your brother's story: I quit "real college" after a few random classes and am now a mechanic)

The week before graduation from GT (in '99) I had a long drunken discussion with a friend about how we should have dropped out of college early on and gone into high end wrenching instead. Still not so sure it was a bad idea.

Mmm. The average mechanic won't ever lay a hand on vehicles like that.

I'm sure no one here falls under the "Average Mechanic" category.

My father talked me out of being a mechanic. I'm very happy he did so. Unfortunately his good career advice pretty much ends there.

I think the vast majority of average mechanics end up doing oil changes at places like Walmart. It's probably difficult to even get a job at a local dealership.

The white car looks to be an old Panoz sports racer. The front engined one.

edit- the ratio of mechanics who do that to engineers who do that is about the same. So you need to ask the question why are you not the eningineer who did the cars in the first place?

i thought i wanted to be a mechanic when i was in school... my dad was a mechanic. his dad was a mechanic. i liked working on cars.

then i took an auto mechanics class and found out what is involved with being a mechanic- all the special tools you need to keep buying, all the education you have to keep taking to not be the oil/tire changer in the shop... i also started talking to people that were mechanics- 40 year old men that could barely bend over because their backs hurt and couldn't stand the thought of even popping the hood to check the oil on their own cars, let alone building cars as a fun hobby...

so i decided to just be a low level manufacturing grunt. i might not ever feel like my job is overly rewarding, but sometimes i've got some extra cash to buy parts for whatever beat up POS is my current "project" and the idea of working on it doesn't totally repulse me, so i think i made the right choice..

I went into nuclear power in the Navy. Now a quality manager for some little shop in West Chester OH. Yeah, reach for the stars baby.

Not only did he get to drive and be around some baddass cars on a badass track, but apparently he can also eat 50 eggs.

to the OP: unless you are married with children and mortgage and all sorts of commitments that mean you can't take a pay cut to live your dream, quit bitching and go live your dream.

When you hate to get up in the morning, it's a long life!

If you are discontent with your career choice, change it. Don't look at your brother with envy, he may not be as happy as you think.

My HS guidance counselor thought I should be an architect. I didn't want to spend years in college only to find out my career choice sucked. Like Jerry I went into the Navy Nuke field, dropped out and became a cook on a submarine. Here I am 40 years later playing with the Army's large bore cannon.

Who woulda guessed?

Seriously, if you're not happy with your choices, GTFO.

sorry guys, I'm actually pretty happy with my current job.

That said, it took me 12 years to find my niche, where what I learned in school lined up with what I'm good at + something I enjoy + something that a company finds valuable.

I know that if I was actually a mechanic I would NOT be as good as my brother, and would have the normal mechanics job at a jiffy lube or something.

Like I said, he is GOOD, really good at what he does. I do not have the attention to detail and commitment to get things perfect that a job like his requires.

I'm still a little jealous.

Just a random observation:

When I was in high school, the guidance counselor was a nice old man who also coached the football team. Now they have guidance counselors in elementary school, and they're hot young ladies. Times have changed.

icaneat50eggs wrote: anyone know what this white car is? It posted the fastest lap

IMSA Lite sports racer offered as a support series for ALMS.

I went to college, graduated with a degree in Communications/broadcasting. Worked a few years as a video editor (which I am very good at) but when times got tough, I moved over to theatre and have not looked back.

I don't make a lot of money.. around 50K a year, but where else can I do that working about 25 hours a week? I am happy, I have free time, and that is all that matters to me

Mine suggested engineering instead of a tech school as well since I thought I wanted to build racecars. Looking back I have to wonder why you would recommend someone with straight Ds in math become an engineer. Unless he meant I should drive trains in which case I am the idiot. After three semesters of handing over my money and trying to figure out which toe was X I left to go racing for a year and then got my CDL.

My dad is a mechanic, a pretty good one. I suck at math, and come hell or high water, I will graduate with a mechanical engineering degree. I'm about 1/3 of the way there.

I like my automotive stuff being a hobby/interest. I pick it up and do as much as I feel like. No deadlines. Not sure if it was also my job if I'd have the same passion still.

The average mechanic may get to work on some cool cars once in a while but the average mechanical engineer gets to own cool cars.

The white car is a Mazda from the a imsa spec prototype series: http://prototypelites.com/ They run support races for alms.

The_Jed wrote: The average mechanic may get to work on some cool cars once in a while but the average mechanical engineer gets to own cool cars.

He's going to make dang near what I do. Of course he's In Austin with much higher cost of living

I went to school to be a mechanic because everyone told me to. I wish I hadn't listened, because now I work for the cable company . I was working on classic and antique cars before this, but there were no benefits and I needed health insurance.

Honestly, most of the guys I went to tech school with never became mechanics.

My guidance counselor was one of those "make your career something you enjoy and you'll never work a day" people. I knew then it was BS. I thought I'd end up as a mechanic anyway. My dad told me over and over to go into computers. After a year of that, I decided to take a "temporary" hiatus from school. That was 10 years ago. I work installing satellite tv now, it sucks.

I moonlighted as a mechanic and realized I hate auto repair. Actually I hate fixing other people's heaps just to have them try and shake you down after your done, and then come back a week later with another issue that you supposedly caused. I'd give my left nut to work on race cars and go to the track as my job. But, even if I get a "high performance" degree, I'd still probably end up working flat rate as a stealership. At this point in life, and the fact that I'm weak at math, an engineering degree is unlikely.