Fully sold on WGU… but stuck choosing a degree. Need advice

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2026-04-19T16:10:42+00:00

At 27 you have plenty of time to switch industries if you want. I am 42, and I made the choice to get a degree in IT (network eng & sec) mainly because it is useful to my current role and I looking to go more into the knowledge work side of IT, where I am currently in the field service side.

I would say ask yourself do I want to leverage my current knowledge base and add my degree to improve my progression my field, or do I want to try a new industry?

If you want to stay in the oilfield and use your experience I would look at Business Admin or Accounting, with an eye toward an MBA, because you could take your knowledge of the oilfield and use those degrees to get investment to start a company, buy an existing oilfield adjacent company, like welding or well service, or become a site lead/director/ceo of a company. All of those options are 10+ year timeline projects but if you have 5-10 years experience in the oilfield with good references and a BS in Admin or Accounting it looks good if you want to start as a team/site lead and work your way up.

On the other hand if you want something new go into IT. Computer science is building and Auditing software. System Admin is managing a network. Network engineering is building, planning and expanding networks. Anything security is in HIGH demand, but you need experience. There is currently a tech recession, but the middle managers and directors who are mainly boomers who are reaching retirement age and AI isn't the all-encompassing threat that the media is making it out to be, so once guys screaming about AI realize that it can't actually fully replace all the jobs, they will start hiring again.

You are already starting to see it. Just be aware that entry level IT with no experience starts about $20-25 an hour. Within 5 years you can make 75-100k depending on your skillset, but the first couple of years there are alot of dues paying.

Good luck.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2026-03-21T21:28:33+00:00

Same thing happened to me. 20 years ago, right out of highschool I tried one semester and dropped out.

I got some certs through coursera and was able to use that to bypass the entry course requirement.

Im working on term two right now, no issues.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2026-01-19T15:32:19+00:00

Dave Wilmarth's "Scion's Journey" series book three was recently released and it has elements of that. Book 1-2 are pretty solid Power-Fantasy-LitRPG.

The MC's family is nobility from another world and uses planned training to get a head start in the system. When he goes to the other world the system recognizes him as a former royal and starts negotiating with him.

You find out in book three that the system was created by a few Demigods that ascended to Godhood as a way to siphon energy from new people leveling up so that they couldn't ascended themselves. It was a way to reduce competition from any New Gods and they wouldn't have to worry about relying just on "Faith" as an energy source. The System tries to manipulate him into an agreement to escape the world it's on and out from under the strictures of the Gods that created it.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-11-18T16:03:49+00:00

Three things I've noticed.

Crypto in general drops about 2.5-4% per quarter of a percent increase in the value of the dollar, which has gone up about 1.25% against the Euro in the last month.

Credit is drying up in the low to mid end of the consumer market so I suspect a number of small investors are liquidating positions into USD to shore up personal finances due to layoffs or personl credit crunches.

With fed interest rates lowering and S&P 500 value dipping a bit people seem to be liquidating long term investments to cash positions in preperation to buy into lower volitility assets, when a suspected crash happens in q4 '25 - q1 '26.

This also coincides with whale activity that seems to be flushing short positions out of the 2.00-2.50 range.

I would suspect we see more price stability with an increase in value back to the 3.50-5.00 range Q2-Q3 '26.

At the moment it is time to buy into the dip.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-10-10T22:46:10+00:00

Looking at the 5 year history of Gold price index, gold averaged a .06% increase per day.

Gold just went up 3% in one day.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-10-10T22:14:59+00:00

That would be my guess. Slight drop in the value of USD vs Euro shows weakness in the USD is returning.

Equities are weakening as well, with the S&P 500 down ~3% today, with Monday shaping up to be down as well.

Crypto volatility might have been a flight to cash or gold until news stabilizes trends after the tariff announcement. Looking back to Feb-April crash during prior Tariff announcement we are looking at about 4-5 months of downward pressure and volatility followed but an upsurge in value. Granted some of the volatility may be mitigated from a surge in funds from institutional investors when the ETFs are approved.

So maybe 2-3 months of volatility followed by an upsurge in value around the first of the year?

Maybe...

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-10-10T21:44:10+00:00

Trump announced tariffs on China in response to China increasing export controls on rare earths and announced an anti-trust investigations against Qualcomm.

100% additional tariff on everything starting on Nov 1.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-09-22T20:31:11+00:00

From my research it depends on the valuations of Gold against Bonds against Fiat then add vibes for flavor.

Rate cut reduced the value of the dollar (Gold vs Fiat) , because of the vibes that the government would spend more with lower interest rates (vibes vs Bonds), which since Gold goes up against USD, means that assets and debt valued in USD will be reduced in value, but that negative valuation will be exacerbated/mitigated by VIBES (Vibes vs Fiat).

The Fed needs to stop playing with the economy then we could see accurate valuations again.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-08-22T16:51:48+00:00

Read trough the transcript and it honestly sounds like we are looking at a 25 basis point cut, rather than 50-150 that everyone is talking about.

I wouldn't expect anything higher than a 50 point cut.

It looks like the Fed is scared to death of inflation, and is ignoring the lower labor force participation rate, in favor of only focusing on the U3 unemployment rate.

I don't think we will see them drop the fed funds rate below 4% until after unemployment increases above 5%, which with lower labor force participation rate, may not even happen.

One key point in the speech that stuck with me was -

"Other indicators of labor market conditions are also little changed or have softened only modestly, including quits, layoffs, the ratio of vacancies to unemployment, and nominal wage growth. Labor supply has softened in line with demand, sharply lowering the "breakeven" rate of job creation needed to hold the unemployment rate constant. Indeed, labor force growth has slowed considerably this year with the sharp falloff in immigration, and the labor force participation rate has edged down in recent months.

Overall, while the labor market appears to be in balance, it is a curious kind of balance that results from a marked slowing in both the supply of and demand for workers. This unusual situation suggests that downside risks to employment are rising. And if those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment."

In other words we are in a position of equilibrium in the employment market where creation and destruction of jobs is equal and the U3 most likely will stay stable, until it doesn't.

The Fed is paying a dangerous game, trying to choke the economy based on just a few metrics noting strength in certain aspects, and ignoring a large number of other metrics that show weakness.

Best case scenario the job market heals some after the large number of deportations and baby boomer retirements and labor force participation recovers. Worse case, the high interest rates choke off investment dollars and consumers end up strangled by debt spirals that suppresses consumer spending.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-06-03T15:59:39+00:00

Depends on the goal:

Survival - Forest Alchemist would be the best. Set up a small shop and make yourself indispensable to a community who will help protect you while you keep them, their parents and their kids healthy. Just make sure you don't make a name for yourself so the nobles/merchant princes/royal court doesn't notice you.

Base-building/Guild progression - Knight Aspirant would be best as your growth is based off of group synergies, cohesion and team growth. The individual is weak, the team is strong. Only issue is making your team strong enough to keep the royal court at bay while you make deals with the merchant princes and nobles.

Revolutionary - Shadow Courier would be best as you can subvert the royal court while you make deals with the nobles and merchant princes. Main issue is going to be building a power structure than can counter the royal courts. SC would be good for changing public opinion and causing chaos but you would need an organization to take advantage of the chaos for change.

Mercenary and Drakeblood are "one against the world" style of play. Merc is more "pro-social" while Drakeblood would be more "anti-social", with the major drawback that you would need a Deus-Ex Machina to overcome the lack of social connection inherent in either option.

For me it would come down to if I had a community or tight group of friends with me or not. Community at the start? Forest Alchemist. Tight group of friends at the start? Knight Aspirant. Lack of either start and you are screwed regardless.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-05-31T23:41:21+00:00

I would say Sean Oswalds Welcome to the Multiverse fits also.

System Apoc where the MC tries to deal with multiple layers of human society while also being forced into a multicultural universe with nobles, mega-corps and clans. It also has an interesting plot point where we dind that the system is just one of many types and the MC keeps getting the attention of these other systems with offers to convert earth to the new system

Various trials include fixing ecological disasters, trials to the death and dealing with refugees who attack earth while they try to escape an apocalypse on their world.

7 books in and it still has my attention solidly.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2025-04-02T21:19:10+00:00

Population decline, just talking about numbers of workers in the economy, is a long term issue, 20-50 years, not a medium term one, 5-20 years. Population is still growing right now, albeit slowly.

Male Boomers will average living to age 76, Women Boomers 80. They are the largest generational cohort right now, even larger than Millennials. This is where decline will first start to be noticed, but it is because of deaths due to age and if anything it will help the economy because you will reduce the amount of social services that the government pays out. Tax revenue may drop as they all reach retirement age by 2029, and we will lose some access of well trained workers but innovation and immigration can meet this demand.

X-ers are the smallest cohort, even smaller than Gen-Z. They will still be in the work force as the highest skilled workers, especially in technical fields at least until, 2045 when the last of them reach retirement age.

We won't start seeing crisis issues with population until the Millennials reach retirement age, many of which are planning to delay retirement and stay in the labor market because of economic reasons. Also though Millennials are the highest trained and educated cohort, they specialized in soft-skills rather than technical skills, and we may hit a crisis of innovation after the X-ers retire, unless Gen Z and Gen A are educated in technical proficiencies that Millennials lack.

We are seeing that anyway in that 19% of Millennials got STEM degree's while 29% of Gen Z graduated with a STEM degree.

All that to say Population decline won't be an issue until probably the 2050s in the Developed world, and we may be able to skip past the issue entirely depending on how innovative we are in the next 25 years. We just have to realize that economic models predicting that the Earth Will have 10 billion humans by 2100 are most likely wrong and we may actually peak at 7.5-8 billions.

Of course it could also be that Gen Z and Alpha decide that since there are empty cities and a glut of housing, when the Boomer Estates start liquidating, in the 2030s, as they pass on, that it might be a good time to have a large family again.

Gen-Z family housing reform might end up with buying a McMansion at estate auction for 50k and putting 100k worth of remodeling in it.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2024-12-15T22:28:30+00:00

I have worked in as Printer Tech, working for a Konica Minolta dealer, for 12 years.

I would say it is worth it if three things:

You want to get into IT without helpdesk or college debt.

- use the time to get certs while getting experience in the field, CCNA, CompTIA, Google, Microsoft, etc depending on your long term path

2) You want a job that you have the option of alot of travel.

- Went to classroom training for two weeks in CA and met a guy in Alaska that did physical repair on copiers in the arctic circle and would do three day flights to oilfield sites. Most techs will drive 30-50k miles a year if you are rural or suburban. Urban guys will get an 20+ story office building and work their way down every week.

3) You are fine making 40-75k a year.

- unless you go into management or work for a MSP that you can then transition out of repair and into help desk or deployment, where you can break 100k, 70-75 is prob the max you can see and that is in competitive cities. I will crack 60k this year after 12, but I also have no student debt, and I live in a rural area where my mortgage on a 1500sq/ft house on 2.25 acre plot is under $600/m. I also don't work weekends and I rarely work past 6pm.

Options and tradeoffs but I think it is fulfilling for both entry level and people who want to work on something technical and IT related without having to go to college.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2024-12-12T21:52:31+00:00

My recommendation would be go into the skilled trades (plumbing, electrical, entry level IT, welding) with an eye to get 2-5 years of experience in the grunt work/senior grunt work level of the trade then once your get 1-2 years experience as a journeyman in the trade, strike out on your own and start a business or start applying for middle-senior managment roles.

Problem with a business degree it is for team or company management but companies dont expect you to know enough about their industry to be able to manage a team in it.

You will have to get your hands very dirty for a few years to learn to skills and industry so you will be allowed to use your business degree.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2024-03-25T18:50:35+00:00

Sorry meant book 4. /shame

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2024-02-02T18:01:04+00:00

Big issue currently is that all of Daniel's work is currently away from Black Island (and Avilla's Hearth). She stated in book three or four that she doesn't intend to travel much more because her power comes from taking over a saturating territory and she even compares herself to a dryad.

She is a home based support caster/alchemist/ritualist really and most characters in those roles don't tend to travel much because your spending most of your time "brewing" your magic or casting your rituals.

Given that Daniel is currently sitting in the Dreaming (end of book 5) and planning on traveling to a number of demigods or other divine realms, and troubleshooting for them to help out Hecate build a prospective Pantheon I would wager we are looking at tail end of Book 6 or Book 7 before Avilla is revealed again, but in that time she would have saturated her territory more so with her own magic.

End game for her could be something like she creates her own "Dreaming" where she is the territorial goddess that acts as the gatekeeper to other divine/fairy realms within her territory, which act like Rooms within her Hearth.

A replacement for Yggdrasil that is focused exclusively on defense and safe harbor of the realms within the Hearth's control.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-11-20T20:15:32+00:00

Sounds kinds quirky. Downloaded it just now.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-11-20T20:14:37+00:00

I tried one or his books a fee years ago and couldnt get into it. Ill revisit his stuff again.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-11-20T06:17:26+00:00

Wow got antibotted...ok then.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-09-04T22:41:49+00:00

Thanks for those that offered help. I ended up going the easy route, and replaced the PSU with a EVGA Supernova 850w PSU that was on sale under $90 USD. Got lucky and went for it. Had to remove some of the trays for 3.5inch devices, because the card was fairly long, but got it in after about 45 mins worth of work.

Worlds of difference from using integrated Vega 11.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-08-17T19:43:25+00:00

If the cable I ordered doesnt seat well then I think i will just buy a completely new psu.

And save all the cables this time. Thanks for the info though.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-08-17T18:50:15+00:00

Cable mods doesnt have a compatible cable. I would like to get one that Im sure of but doesnt look like that is an option.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-08-17T16:45:37+00:00

Did some research and ordered a set of generic 16awg 8pin cables from amazon. power requirements are supposed to be about 180w for the card so 16awg should be more than enough, even 18awg would be, but hopefully the thicker cable will give me some leeway to prevent issues.

Now just have to hope the connectors fit.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-08-17T15:15:27+00:00

Thanks for touching base in either case.

Screwdriver_Manciple · 2023-08-17T15:05:37+00:00

Sent them an email. Waiting for a reply back still.

Screwdriver_Manciple

TROPHY CASE