anyone in college or employed in an /out/ related field. im in college for environmental engineering and hate it but hopefully i can land some innawoods job out of this. or at least become a government jackass smugly delaying construction projects.
>>2730799I work as a hydrogeologist for a groundwater monitoring company. Most of what I do is go to landfills and sample groundwater from monitoring wells to ensure compliance with EPA regs. It's a pretty rough job sometimes and doesn't pay all that much, but hey I'm in decent shape and have a watch tan.
>>2730853>landfills and sample groundwater from monitoring wells to ensure compliance with EPA regsdid this last semester and it was boring but the prof said it's steady work. have you done anything where you actually get to go into a rural or wild area?
Im majoring in forestry. Gonna graduate soon but I did get a nice summer job that is forestry oriented. It’s really chill overall and I’m just out in the woods can’t complain.
Electrical/RF engineer.LMR and fixed wireless.System design and integration, installation/maintenance/repairs/decoms, RDF/interference locating, specializing in commercial and public safety applications.Obviously get to play with radio stuff, but also computer/networking stuff (fiber, ptp/ptmp microwave, vpn/commercial interwebs (cable/dsl/vsat/etc)). Get to climb towers. Get to drive snowcats, snowmobiles, atv/utvs, motorcycles.
>>2730950All the goddamn time. That's where landfills are. Closed sites are overgrown to shit too so I'm genuinely innawoods for some of my sites. Fuckin sucks honestly, but it pays the bills and I'm getting a shit load of overtime this month.
>>2730799It took me 8 years to get a permanent job as a wildlife biologist doing damage management and I’ve been at this job for 4 years. I seem to spend most of my time managing the moods and manipulating the people above me to do what we need to do because they’re morons. I don’t get to do so much outside work unless they’re sending me on a foreign deployment and I no longer have to deal with the petty office politics.
>>2731015Just graduated in electrical engineering and what you're doing sounds like my dream job. How did you get into it if you don't mind me asking?
>>2731033sounds kind of fun to me but i work a crappy security job. was considering changing my major to environmental science
>>2731369I'm actually heading out this week. I'll see if I can't get some photos for the thread. The sites I'll be visiting are in northeast ohio, one close and one active. Not looking forward to tomorrow because it'll be a hell of a drive over there.
>>2730853>Most of what I do is go to landfills and sample groundwater from monitoring wells to ensure compliance with EPA regsDear God that sounds like a dream job for an autist like me. Doesn’t seem too clean but no interacting and sounds like a similar routine each day
>>2731649Oh no, you got it all wrong. Cleanliness is of the utmost importance and no two sites are the same. Because we send our samples to a lab, even the smallest amounts of contaminants will be detected. And you definitely don't want to be the guy responsible for a benzene or toluene hit in a well where there never was any hydrocarbons detected at previous events.
>>2731372See you there
Right, so I managed to take a couple pictures today. No idea how well this will work on the phone.>inb4 phonefagYou got a better way to post from a hotel room something like 300 miles from home?
Another one from the same site
And here's one from a different site
>>2731360>Just graduated in electrical engineering and what you're doing sounds like my dream job. How did you get into it if you don't mind me asking?It's a tiny niche industry. Best to know people.Working for a big tower co (SBA, Crown Castle, etc) gets you paid certs (tower climbing/rescue) and gear provided, and an easy in with growth opportunities. Easier to find these jobs, and easier to get the position.Smaller co's will be a lot more fun and generally hire better people to work with. You'll get to do more than just "one job" - one day you might be on a tower replacing a noisy antenna, the next day you're putting mobiles in cop cars, next week you're repairing a pile of portables from a school district, with a callout to fix an angry repeater on a mountain 2 hours away. Most of the work is very little actual EE stuff. You need the RF/AC/DC background, but it's not really engineering-level work for the most part. Not saying it doesn't help. Other skills like troubleshooting, automotive tech, vehicle operations, and outdoors/survival stuff helps too. Clean driving and criminal record usually required. Tower work is unique. Most radio shops don't do it because of the liability, insurance, and equipment/skills needed for that work. Shops that do the engineering and installation will farm out the tower work to a company that specializes in it. A company that specializes in tower work usually doesn't work much with the radios and equipment plugged into the antennas and dishes they service.
The work I did prior to going full-time with my business was heavy on RF and desktop instrument design. Already had experience with PCB fab, CAD tools and CNC/laser/manual processes, wireless networking, electromechanics. Weekends i'd be out riding snowmobiles, motorcycles, dirt bikes, etc. Take the skills and equipment that come with those activities allowing me to access these remote sites, along with skills to diagnose and fix electronics/wireless things, add in some osha/safety-related training and a little business sense... not too hard to get work in radio. 175ft at the platform.
Some of the bullshit i've had to deal with getting to sites. Glad I didn't take a truck or atv for this job. Another 6 miles to the site from here.
About once a year I get activated to some shithole small town that doesn't have resources, and other adjacent counties with mutual aid agreements are expected to be at capacity due to a storm, wildfire, whatever. So I get to run dispatch for plows/ems/fire teams.
"Your bid is kind of high", says the customer who wants a job done right away because it's an emergency. Neat, let me know if you find someone else who's got the qualifications to do the job.
>>2732495Sounds unfathomably based anon. I can only dream of having a /out/ job as awesome as that.
i currently do environmental consulting for a small company. 2 years out of college with a soil science degree. i mostly work with geologists and engineers. wish i had done either or so i could eventually get my PE or PG, that seems to be what pays.i get to do a lot of decently cool work and a lot of very uncool and not fun work. groundwater monitoring, soil sampling, wetland delineation etc.., sometimes in cool places. mostly at federal sites and military bases that aren’t very fun. ama
>>2732175>>2732177>>2732502>>2732507these give me hope
>>2731015I also just graduated with an EE degree specializing in RF. I know some tower climbers/emcomm people through my local ham club and they're all bad ass hillbillies with GEDs. I'm working for a big company with fuck you bucks currently but I'm stuck in an office all day.How often do you get to climb? Is the tower stuff you do maintaining broadcast radio or cell networks or what?
>>2732175>>2732176>>2732177>>2732495>>2732498>>2732502>>2732506>>2732507Brugly chill. You spam the whole thread every time anyone asks questions about /out/ jobs.
>>2733319My last job was an engineering desk job. That 8-10 hours a day sitting in front of a computer is why I quit, to go play in the snow and climb on shit. i'm on a tower a couple times a month late spring to late fall. About half the time, the problem's something the operations team can fix, either remotely rebooting a device, or changing routes, or rolling a control channel, whatever. Most well-designed systems, the ops nerds have already done a ton of troubleshooting and when I get a call it's "Channel 2's having a transmit problem, probably PA or PSU" rather than "something broke, go fix it". Not all systems are well-designed, so a couple times a year I get that "it's fucked and we don't know what's wrong" call.90% of the problems I fix are on the ground. Lightning protection, PA, PSU, timing/sync, tuning, loose connections sort of stuff. The antenna and cabling on the tower is an important part of the system, fortunately it's a small part of the overall site. I'm LMR and fixed wireless. Point-to-point and point-to-multipoint microwave, and walkie-talkie stuff. I've done a few broadcast jobs, but it's rare. Most of the time it's public safety and commercial/business equipment i'm working on.>>2733348Contribute something useful.
>>2730799EE and then terminal CE/CS. Wish I had stayed away from the office. Look up how to qualify/test for patent agent exam. Additional 120-240k/year at a reasonable pace, at home, online. Boring yet easy work. No law degree required, just affiliate with a law firm. Stack the extra and retire innawoods.
>>2732555A fellow soil scientist is see. Ive done wetland delineations mainly for the past five years, but also construction monitoring, and also local permitting, sometimes state and federal, but if you asked me to do other soil sci related work, say perc tests, I wouldnt know jack. I rarely get to see a pit anymore.At the point i could go for my CPSS and PWS but the test for CPSS is daunting and I need more coursework for PWS.
>>2733348Uh, those are all different people. And what else do you want me to post if not pictures from work in the thread about /out/ jobs?
>>2730799No, I had an IT job but got fired so I'll never get a job in that industry again, don't know what I'll do now. Would be nice to have an /out/ job but it seems like the demand to supply ratio for jobs would be even more ludicrous there.
>>2734573Try not stealing time for starters.
I worked as a biologist for an environmental consulting gig. I worked with the staff PWS to hump a GPS along pipelines.Outside all the time in neat places all over the east coast. Traveled two weeks a month. I was fit and happy and making decent cash. My dumb ass went to law school and now I don't go outside from 7a-6p MtoF. Better dough, shittier QoL. I walked more miles in a summer at my old job than in the last five years combined. NGMI.
It's not really an innawoods job but with teaching/academics you still get summer and winter breaks to go outside. It's shifty pay but pretty nice flexibility
>>2730799this thread is highly depressing. i wish i'd majored in something like electrical engineering or forestry instead of something worthless like finance...
I have an art degree and am a park janny
>>2734586I work in healthcare it’s kind of like that. 3 days on, 4 off, with fairly generous PTO, means I can go on camping trips pretty much whenever
>>2735300
Anyone here do surveying? Thinking about branching over that way a little bit. Either that or wastewater treatment which isn't /out/ I know, but it helps keep waterways clean so I'm attracted to it for that reason.
brother went to environmental science but had to go into tech because there weren't any jobs. he was willing to liveinnawoods/etc but even then the jobs simply weren't there.
forest janny here (actual one, wilderness ranger not interp), the pay is shit but I am out in wilderness all the time, have housing in a place people dream about visiting, have fulfilling and meaningful work, but also ultimately never work very hard. I had a liberal arts degree. happy to answer any questions.
>>2736975i'm >>2735300, how do i into what you do, fren?
>>2735300>something worthless like financelol>majors in one of the most broadly applicable majors available >tons of career options and opportunities >still doesn't like it"Grass is always greener", I guess.
