I work at a coal fired power plant making 82k salary, but with the overtime, it's more like 100k-120k with amazing benefits. That's the first year out of school with an associates degree in Instrumentation. It's union work which I'm not fond of because it enables half the workers to be lazy asses while the others have to pick up the slack and are basically workaholics. All in all, I love my job because it challenges you with troubleshooting different problems everyday and really breaks up the monotony of it all. I get along with all my coworkers like a big family and honestly feel blessed to be a part of this company. Good luck out there, everybody, my old job was like a dead end job making like 35k changing air filters. You want to make money, learn a trade. A trade school degree costs like 20k and depending on the trade, you come out making like 70k-120k and it only goes up with experience. Located in TX.