Two years ago I graduated my BSc in Marine Biology. Thinking back, my main reasons for this were that I wanted to go to uni, Biology was the science I found easiest (I studied Biology, Physics and Chemistry at A level), and I enjoy the sea.
Having been extremely lucky and managed to hold down a Job in the sector for 2 years, in which I have been able to experience all areas of the profession from Taxonomy, to Ecology, Oceanography and Microbiology, I have (rather unfortunately) discovered that doing any of this for the rest of my life would quite possibly drive me to an early grave and/or insanity.
From an age where I was capable of rational thought, I have dismantled and rebuilt everything that surrounds me just out of interest. Since I can remember, and especially since I started driving, lying under anything with an engine has been the thing that makes me happiest. I think my reason behind not studying engineering has been that academia often takes all the fun out of what you love the most.
However recently I have decided that a career in the automotive trade, particularly fabrication, modification and restoration, is what I crave. If I had the confidence and experience, I would jack in my job tomorrow, rent a garage, and start taking in vehicles to repair.
For my year 10 work experience I worked for a local garage. The first day I was allowed to do nothing but make tea, and it was explained to me that every previous work experience student was capable of little else. After half a day of observation and talking (and making tea) I was allowed to work on the cars. By the end of the day I was working along side one of the mechanics. By the end of the week I was entrusted with a cam belt change on a customers car with observation and advising, and the complete replacement (minus observation or checking of the final work) of the brakes of the owner's brand new Audi A8.
Since then I have put in several hundred hours of work, welding, fabricating and spannering my Land Rover, including the complete rebuild and retro-fitting of a new engine and gearbox (My next victim will be a Morrie, no fear
). I have also worked on many other friend's and family's cars, and I honestly can't think of any other thing that I would be excited to go to work to do every morning.My issue is that I don't have the faintest clue about how to enter the trade. I'm particularly interested in modification of vehicles from spannering to welding and fabrication. I don't have as much experience in the latter, but only because I haven't had the time or necessity for this most time-consuming part of vehicle maintenance on the vehicles I have worked on.
I can't afford the long-term commitment of becoming a full time apprentice, but I also don't have the proof of skill, arrogance or naivety to just start out on my own.
At the moment my main plan is to talk to a local one-man-band restorer of VW campers that I know. I also have a friend who has recently inherited an entire lifetime's worth of tools, including several vintage motorbikes that the previous owner had been unable to restore. what he wants the most is to be able to restore them himself, but he has little to no experience with vehicle mechanics. I am proposing to him that I will provide the skills that I have free of charge, on the understanding that I could use the finished product(s) as an aid to my CV.
What I want to know is how those of you in the trade worked your way in, and whether you think there's anything else I could do to help my situation? Do I need to consider any qualifications in the area? BTEC or other? I have looked at OU courses but even holding down an full-time job they are economically inviable at present.
O damn, I appear to have rambled on more than a politician at this point.
Tom.
welding fabrication perhaps ?i wish i had a degree in oceanography
