what to do? more education papers or not?

[DecSpec]

Good morning all,

I will try to keep this to the point, my apologies if it gets a bit long winded...
Im 26, with a higher cert in mechanical engineering, giving me a title of mechanical technician...
I chose to go get work experiance after 2 year's of college to get hands on skills as i didnt grow up in an engineering house hold, basically never taking thing apart or seeing how thingS work...

My first job was with my uncles agricultural/construction engineering company producing drawings for the shop floor on solidworks (taught myself how to use it over 3 years before college), after the first 3months the design engineer left and basically I took over his role, i spent the next 1.5yrs bringing every product they manufactured from hand drawingS on 10yr old bit's of paper or old cad drawings to solidworks models complete with b.o.ms, cutlists, welding dwg's, and ass dwg's, along with designing new jigs and new products and designing new jigs for old products to bring down manufacturing times...I put in 50hr weeks often taking work home, also worked on everything to help get the company ISO certified, and succeeded in this.

I left after 2yrs because I wanted to branch into a different field of engineering, which after 6months working in a mens cloths shop i finally found.

I got a job with an engineering company who design, develope and build race engines and motorcycles for racing, along with have a complete toolroom for toolmaking for the medical device sector...
I spent the following 2yrs working as a technican/druaghtsman/designer/toolmaker/teamaker...
My goal was the get into the race engine development and building side, but I first had to prove I could machine, so I spent my day form 8am to 4pm in the toolroom, working on everything from medical divice prototypes, to cylinderheads to tig-welding and fabricating swingarms for race bikes, then from 4pm to all hours of the night I would go the engine development building(that was the beauty of the company having their own toolroom) and just spend hours with them watching and learning the hands on stuff and the math involved until after 6months I finally was stripping engines, working on the development process, which ranged from simple cylinderhead bore increases or basic CDI mapping on the dyno to complete blueprints+development of the engine and bikes chassis with days on the dyno depending on customer budget, highlight being developing 3 motorcycles going to LE MAN in 2007 to compete in the 24hr race. I also became so good at the tooling end that i was going to the medical device companies(that the company were the toolmaker for, even ones that had their own toolroom) myself when called, to ascess new jobs...

Then the world went bust and I lost the job, but the company got me into a 6month machining course because they Knew the instructors, where I completed the 6months projects within the first 2months, and spent the final 4months doing the same projects the toolmakers in their final year of the 4yr apprenticeship were doing...

After that i got a job with a toolmaker for the next 1.5yrs working on medical device prototypes and molds, both design through solidworks and the machining...

I wanted to try to get back into the racing scene so I left that job and spent 2 months pondering about going back to university to finish a mechanical degree or motorsport degree with powertrain design, as I thought about this and looked into everything I got a call from a family relation wanting help setting up a new factory to produce supermarket freezers, I accepted thinking it would be 6months max but it now been 2yrs, started out just setting up the manufacturing lines and training up the employees to their stations(very difficult getting construction workers off building site's to come around to a more precise world of refrigeration engineering), then acting as production manger to 15 men, onto qaulity control, working with the sister company across the other side of the country, emplementing their quality procedures here...

And there you have it my career since I left college with my higher cert.
Now there is a good chance I will have my job back with the engineering company I previously worked with developing race engines again within the next few months as they have always stayed in contact and now hope to able to bring me back, but its not certain yet....
My question to you all is, I want to get into engine development and building again, if I dont get this job back should I go back into education get my degree/masters/phd? or go travelling and try to push my way into the industry with my current education and experiance?
By the way, to this date I have never referred to myself as an engineer, Im a mechanical technician with a broad range of experiance across many different fields and not many papers for it...

What would you do?

Many thanks to anyone who reads this.

 

[IRstuff]

Frankly, anything anyone else can say is mostly irrelevant, since it's your life that's being lived and not anyone else's. What exactly do YOU want to do?

You're 26, which means that you're statistically up to 44 yrs away from retirement, and likely to go through 4 more recessions. You seem to be able to weather recessions tolerably well, and you would likely be able to get the same job back from your racing company or another similar one, but that's it.

Will they ever let you design the engines or the cars? Do you want to do that? If you don't get a degree, you'll NEVER be able to call yourself an engineer, outside of some company that might let you in without it, but those companies are rare.

Statistically, a degree will get you getter paying jobs, and will open more doors for other jobs should you change directions later. Without a degree, you will only have your experience, that's relevant only to the racing companies. You may do OK financially, and if you're careful with your savings, you can still build a retirement nest egg, but only if your start NOW, and start agressively.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
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[KENAT]

More or less ditto IRstuff.

Non degreed Engineers were more common in the recent past but are getting rarer & rarer and in these days of boiler plate online/HR application procedures not having a degree will often get you binned early in the process, even if you could have actually done the job.

Even if you get the job I'd look at trying to get your degree.

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http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[bigTomHanks]

You are young and depending on your family situation I would strongly suggest going back to school if possible. This will greatly help you achieve your desired goal. One thing I should note is that it is still possible to become an engineer without going to college. It takes a lot of the right things coming together at once but it does happen. In my opionion it is a sign of the quaility of the company if they allow their good craft workers to work their way up to enginering positions. Those engineers tend to have the most practical knowledge and are great to have as coworkers.

 

[IRstuff]

Just bear in mind that even if that happened, what would you do, say, 20 yrs down the road, if you go laid off?

Trying to get a degree then, and a job as a complete newbie then, would be nontrivial.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[lacajun]

You have learned one important lesson in life and that's that education, formal and informal, is the best investment you can make in yourself. It's up to you to determine how far and in which direction you want to take it. Just don't stop learning.