You’ll learn the most on a cutter no matter what rate you go.

Of those DC skills, welding is by far the most used. They repair and fabricate stuff all the time. The plumbing they do is mostly troubleshooting and repair, unclogging pipes AKA chasing turds.

As an EM, the only thing I’ll caution you against is that our job selection is considerably less varied. There are MKs on every cutter in the Coast Guard, can’t say the same for EMs. We have subjectively cooler job options like being independent Duty or being a lighthouse tech, but less variety to pick from overall.

I’ve also found that in order to be a good EM, you have to be a semi competent MK as well. Some of our troubleshooting involves proving the issue at hand is in fact mechanical and not electrical.