> One of the many odd things about the rhetoric that posits welding as the antithesis of college is that in order to become a welder, you actually have to go to college. You can learn the basics in a high-school shop class, as Orry did, but to do it well, you not only have to master multiple precise manual skills; you also need a pretty deep scientific understanding of the metal you’re working with and the electrical and chemical processes you’re using to manipulate that metal. To earn an associate’s degree, Orry would need to pass 12 separate welding courses, plus basic courses in math and English, as well as more conceptual courses in welding metallurgy.

This right here. Says it all.

I've worked in machine shops all my life, and while it is true that welding was one of the highest paid occupations in that environment; it's also true that it's not something that anyone can do with a week of on-the-job training.

Most welding jobs are sticking wrought iron railings together, or playground equipment, or repairing mufflers. It's easy. It's cheap. It is, quite literally, something for a disposable employee to do. It doesn't take skill or experience to replace a muffler. It takes a hack-saw and a MIG welder. There's no reason anyone would or should pay a Jiffy-lube muffler installer $150k/year. It's not a job that warrants that kind of pay. But most "welders" go into the trade thinking that's what they're working towards. It's not comparable in any way to the work performed by a professional welder. They really shouldn't even be called the same thing. It's like labeling a script kiddie a programmer. Misrepresenting the script kiddie takes more away from the actual programmer than it gives to the fake one.

That being said, "real" welding is where the money is. It's being certified by some authoritative body to perform your job, whatever that may be. Aerospace, architectural, nuclear, underwater, ect. It's being able to read a complex blueprint and create assemblies that are conforming to a long list of criteria. Criteria that come from a) the government, b) the customer, c) your own quality department, d) your engineering department, e) your own experience. I bet you that if you took most bicycles from Wal-Mart and had the welds x-ray'd that 100% would fail standard NDT testing like X-Ray, FPI (fluorescent particle inspection), MPI (magnetic particle inspection). It requires a very low-level understanding of the science behind welding. On a molecular/chemical level.

The welders who take their job seriously, climb to the top, take their time, can read a blueprint, and are professional in their appearance, work ethic, mannerisms, and products do well. They will reach $150k by working on mission-critical components that people's lives depend on. You can't substitute an actual welder for "a welder." They need to be responsible, talented, and intelligent.

Sadly the people being pushed/drawn into welding careers aren't any of those things. They are simple people looking for an easy way out of poverty. As a result, there are now hundreds of thousands of under-qualified people trying to get into a career with mere thousands of openings. The ones that do get in hover close to the bottom because they need the same skills to be good at welding that they needed all along. The bar for welding is just as high as for being a doctor, or a programmer, or any other profession.

So in the end, you can be a wealthy welder or a poor welder. You can be a wealthy programmer, or a poor programmer. It all comes down to the word "professional". If you're professional chances are good you're intelligent and will do well no matter what field you go into.

My last shop was NADCAP certified (for aerospace with 5 x-ray certified full-time welders. We had one who only made it about 9 months or so. His welds were GORGEOUS. This guy should have been working in a motorcycle shop. His work was just so neat and tidy! But he couldn't pass X-ray or FPI to save his life. He would wait nervously for his parts to return from NDT vendors to count the parts he would have to rework.

After he porked 400 or so inconel rings for tungsten inclusion we had to let him go. He was a good welder, but he wasn't good enough to be working on airplane parts.