Hauling 5th wheels

I just moved into college and I never thought I could be so upset about a wrong choice in my life. Anyway, alternatives to school is why I'm back after selling my old IDI some 6 months ago. Been interested in driving trucks my whole life, but never really had a reason to get into it. Now I do. Only thing is, a CDL is a little extreme for my tastes, not that I'd have a problem driving a day cab or going cross country, but I've always been interested in 5th wheels and medium hauling. Something I could do with a cummins my friend has been trying to sell to me ever since I sold the old 250, or any other heavy duty pickup for that matter. Anybody know what my options are as far as a transport business hauling cars or whatever else with a 5th wheel? Any companies out there I could start off with? Just looking for general information here and if any of you guys have had experience with this type of work and the success rate. Hope you guys can help me out, blowing 12 grand on tuition only to find out that I'm not as interested in planes as I had thought has been a big hit to my pride and my ego, so I'm feeling pretty down. Any sort of info will be a big help, even if its negative.

What I've been able to learn is that pretty much anyone trying to make money with a light duty pickup is very, very difficult. Many who do it are retirees who can use most of their expenses as tax write offs and do it as a way to see the country and have some fun, but it doesn't seem like its too much fun. Search "rv transporter" and you'll find a lot of info on it. I don't think hauling a gooseneck or 5th wheel with cars or cargo is going to make much money either, at least for a light duty pickup.

I hated college when I started. I went in as an Agriculture major and didn't like it at all. Then two years later I switched to Mechanical Engineering, which is a lot harder. Now I'm entering my 5th year, with this year and next year left. Its a lot of work but I think it will definitely be worth it. A little pain now and the rest of your life could be a lot easier. You could do great without ever going to college, the chances though are better if you have more education. I suggest you stick with it for a while and see. I don't love college now but I don't mind it and I'm learning a lot, I think it will really be worth it when I'm out.

I went to 2 years of college and studied robotics and electrical engineering... when I graduated the 9/11 attack had just occurred and jobs were scarce in my area and field... now I work for the railroad as a mechanical inspector, and I love it! so there are good jobs to be had w/o college training. College does not guarantee a good job, or even a job at all. Lately I read on the internet about the high paying union type jobs that are learned thru apprenticeships.

Its something to think about.

Well, the school isn't my problem. I love the campus, the food, the girls.. Everything except my major. It just isn't gonna be enough to keep me in the same job for more then 5 years. And I'd rather risk going without college education and having experience in the job I'd probably end up in then trying to switch when I'd probably be in too deep.

Thanks for the suggestion of RV transporter Weatherford, found a lot of sites with some good information there. Looks like I'll be moving back home and going for my CDL to get some experience before I get to where I want to be, but I expected that from the beginning.

Driving for a living is about the toughest life you can get. Don't let dreams of open roads and what have you cloud your thought process. If you already have some college going, might want to stick with it, in a handful of years, you are going to wish you had.
Not that I regret one second I spent out on the road, but I'm an ornery coot from the get go and always have been and it was something I always wanted to do not a secondary whim,I always had a traveling jones and had to do something about it , pushing a truck was a logical choice and I loved it, but everyone burns out on it eventually. If you've got brains, you will burn out faster than others, because , like me , you will quickly tire of being told what to do by utter idiots all the time. One day I finally decided I had enough of groveling to morons and threw in the keys and went back to college, and by then it required loosing everything I had, because i had made so much money in the past I wasn't eligible for anything so it was cash on the barrel head, and ironically it was impossible to get part time work as a student because I was so heavily overqualified and everyone was afraid I would quit to seek more rewarding employment. I toughed it out for a few years till all my rescources ran dry. Earned a scholarship but some moron lost it in the computer system ( along with 1500 other people's but the rest were all kids riding on daddy's dime so it was beer money for them )and that amount of money was the straw that broke the camels back, so I wound up back in a truck.

Once you start down that new road there will basically be no going back, so think long and hard before you bury yourself into something for life, make sure it's REALLY what you want to be doing. Ask yourself, why is it that you started out going to college for what you were doing? Is it just getting a little tough? are you just wimping out and not really fulfilling your real dreams? Sometimes you just need to back up , slow down, lower the class load to get things down to where you can comprehend and process things and do what you really want to do , instead of making a hasty retreat that you may end up regretting

A degree is primarily a ******** tolerance indicator anyway, it really doesn't say you know anything, but it tells the world, hey, I can tolerate X amount of ******** and remain standing. and this is why so many companies will hire folks with a degree, regardless of what the degree is in, simply because they have the degree. and it is worth extra cash and benefits

See cranky old farts are around for a reason

RLDSL said:

Once you start down that new road there will basically be no going back, so think long and hard before you bury yourself into something for life, make sure it's REALLY what you want to be doing. Ask yourself, why is it that you started out going to college for what you were doing? Is it just getting a little tough? are you just wimping out and not really fulfilling your real dreams? Sometimes you just need to back up , slow down, lower the class load to get things down to where you can comprehend and process things and do what you really want to do , instead of making a hasty retreat that you may end up regretting

A degree is primarily a ******** tolerance indicator anyway, it really doesn't say you know anything, but it tells the world, hey, I can tolerate X amount of ******** and remain standing. and this is why so many companies will hire folks with a degree, regardless of what the degree is in, simply because they have the degree. and it is worth extra cash and benefits

See cranky old farts are around for a reason

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+1 on what he said..
if you haven't moved home yet, talk to the counselor on chainging degrees. Perhaps a degree in mechanical engineering. You're young, you are thinking that your body will stay healthy forever. It won't. there will come a day where you will have wished you stuck with earning that degree. while you are young and fairly free of obligations, go get the degree, when you are done, you can always go out on the road. Even DOD and DOE want to see a college background for their most basic trucking jobs. why? you need to be able to read the instructions if the **** hits the fan. gutting through the four year degree only helps open doors. not having one will make your opportunities scarcer.

Hey Youngster...here's a 63 year-old with some advice you may not want to hear. Just because you decided you didn't want to continue in your chosen major doesn't mean you should quit college all-together. Change majors! Let me explain why I think it was a mistake to leave school. First, it's a great experience. In your time at college, you will make some lifetime friends...people who will stick with you through "thick and thin". You may have some of those from high school, too. Second...your lifetime earning potential. Did you know that people with a degree, on average, earn more than twice the amount of money in their lifetime than people who only graduate high school? Think about it long and hard. Do you want to live comfortably, or always be worrying where your next dollar is coming from? (That's not to say that people without a degree ALWAYS make less. Look at Bill Gates, for example. I'm just talking statistics here). Third, if you decide to go back to school, think about a useful major that will get you the best job after graduation. Majors like physics, chemistry, engineering, business are usually preferred by industry over "softer" degrees like sociology, psychology, or physical education. If you are unsure of what you want to major in, there's a test called the Strong Vocational Interest test. Any counselor can arrange it for you. It will tell you which vocations would interest you. Take it...it might surprise you what you might be interested in. I took it, and it changed my life. If money is a problem, consider a junior college for a couple years to get the G.E. requirements out of the way. That way, you will only need to pay for a couple years at the more expensive school.
Fourth, after considering all the above, IF you still don't want to go back to college, consider a trade school like plumbing, electrical, or air conditioning. Why? because these jobs are not likely to go away because someone in a foreign country can do it cheaper. If you want another alternative, join the military. Choose a specialty that will help you in the future. Aviation electronics and a number of others might help with a future career, while specialties like infantryman or machine-gunner might not. In the few years that you will be in the military, maybe the economy will turn around.

In any case, good luck with your decision and your life.
It's not easy these days, no matter what you choose.

Monte
B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering
M.B.A. Business Marketing and Finance
8 years in college
2 years active duty in the Navy during Viet Nam.

Honestly what I'd really like to be doing is being a working cowboy in Colorado. I've already done it for a few summers and enjoyed it greatly. I could have stayed year round and be working out there now making a decent living. I may go do just that when I get out of school. The degree I plan on getting will in now way hinder me in getting a job in the future (vs. having no degree), it can only help me. You could certainly be a truck driver after college... but if after a few years on the road you decide its not your thing, you've got options. My $0.02.

Lots of good life lessons there guys, but I'm already at a tech school bound into a single major with some small credit courses on the side. I had planned for Aviation maintenance, but I just realized I only liked fixing my own stuff. As selfish as it seems, I'm not gonna be any happier going into an airport on some rainy Monday morning to fix some rich ******** Cessna then I would walking into a warehouse to earn minimum wage. Money has never really been a big issue for me, as in I don't need much to go on. I'm one of the guys who'll intentionally buy something really cheap just to enjoy the problems it has. A gluten for punishment? Maybe, but fixing up an old truck is a lot better then driving one off the showroom floor. Gives you something to be proud of. I suppose I should have made it a bit more clear when I started the thread, I can't change my major unless I'd like to come back next year at this time to start over again, its just the way it is structured.

So, trucking isn't my only option, I know that, but it is what suits me better then anything else. And I'm not some bright eyed kid looking to make some quick hourly wage and just scrape by. I know its gonna be tough, any course of action from here on in is gonna be a real test of willpower, but I welcome the challenge.

I guess I'm just bass ackwards, but I'd rather live in a trailer then a mansion. Sure, the money would be nice, but I'd still have an old beat up truck, deer heads in the stairwells, and be hunting every chance I got, so honestly money doesn't matter to me. That's the trap I fell into when I was looking at majors.

Leviathan said:

I guess I'm just bass ackwards, but I'd rather live in a trailer then a mansion. Sure, the money would be nice, but I'd still have an old beat up truck, deer heads in the stairwells, and be hunting every chance I got, so honestly money doesn't matter to me. That's the trap I fell into when I was looking at majors.

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Leviathan,

Life is about choices. The fact of the matter is that people who have money have a LOT more choices that people who live from paycheck to paycheck. If you have no money, you have fewer choices. For example, you have no choice about working or not. People who have made money because they got a college education and saved what they made can decide to spend their time in a lot of different ways other than working. This may seem unimportant to you now, but when you are 55 or 60, you might wish otherwise.

Full Monte said:

Leviathan,

Life is about choices. The fact of the matter is that people who have money have a LOT more choices that people who live from paycheck to paycheck. If you have no money, you have fewer choices. For example, you have no choice about working or not. People who have made money because they got a college education and saved what they made can decide to spend their time in a lot of different ways other than working. This may seem unimportant to you now, but when you are 55 or 60, you might wish otherwise.

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I agree fully with what Monte said here. I know that you've decided that aviation mechanics isn't for you, and I can't say I blame you...I thought about becoming a professional mechanic and decided not to for two reasons: 1, I knew that my body wouldn't be able to handle it long-term and 2, I don't like working under pressure in such an environment.

As I understand it, you're at a vocational school at the moment, yes? If it's at all possible, I would actually recommend getting out of that school, for now....instead, go to a community college and take some general education courses. A community college is MUCH less expensive than a vocational college or a university, and can give you some time to think about what you'd like to do long-term while still moving forward. Also, in addition to the general-ed courses, you can take a few major-specific courses in different fields to see what may suit your fancy. And, as others have said, talk to a counselor...although I would recommend talking to a counselor at a CC or a university as opposed to a vocational school.

I agree firmly with what pretty much everyone on here has posted....dropping out and trying to get by with only a high school education may seem like the best idea now, but I can all but promise you that, in this day and age, the day WILL come when you'll regret it. Any job that requires physical labor is going to wreck your body sooner or later, and you're really going to want something to fall back on when that time comes...and it's getting harder and harder to find ANY non-physical work that doesn't require some sort of college degree, and will be flat-impossible sooner rather than later.

It may sound like a bad cliche, but it's true...you have your whole life ahead of you. Decisions you make now can and will have a long-term effect...so I would think long and hard about where you want to be 10 or even 20 years from now. It's always possible to go back to school when you're older, but it's certainly not easy, with the other obligations you will almost certainly have by then.

BTW, to the more narrow topic of driving, all I've ever heard is that it's just about impossible to make money hauling with a pickup truck. If you really want to haul, you're going to want a CDL and to be driving a rig. And, even then, it's not really a great way to make a living....I admit that I get white-line fever and want to go out in a truck at times, but I'm saving it for after I retire from my "real" job that I don't even have yet

Hope this helps you some...good luck with whatever decision you make

Luckily this isn't solely a vocational school. It's a technology school. Think of a West Virginia / Penn State school with all of the courses more centralized on giving you experience in a particular field. Instead of going for a major in history at a Penn State, you come here and actually get out and dig up bones. You get what I'm saying?

Hopefully I will have options as far as staying here and relying on Gen Ed. courses to stay here and make up my mind. Something like that has to wait until tomorrow when I can talk to an adviser, but I had already considered that last night. The college provides a general education plan, but I have doubts about being able to just hop into a couple classes, again, I don't know the specifics but that is the path I'm hoping to take.

Leviathan said:

Luckily this isn't solely a vocational school. It's a technology school. Think of a West Virginia / Penn State school with all of the courses more centralized on giving you experience in a particular field. Instead of going for a major in history at a Penn State, you come here and actually get out and dig up bones. You get what I'm saying?

Hopefully I will have options as far as staying here and relying on Gen Ed. courses to stay here and make up my mind. Something like that has to wait until tomorrow when I can talk to an adviser, but I had already considered that last night. The college provides a general education plan, but I have doubts about being able to just hop into a couple classes, again, I don't know the specifics but that is the path I'm hoping to take.

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are you on a four year program or a two year program?

towcat said:

are you on a four year program or a two year program?

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Right now I'm in for 4 years. Going into the adviser today during lunch to find out what my options are as far as switching to an undecided major and just getting some credits under my belt so I don't waste the rest of the semester by moving home or what have you. That is my best option as of now.

Even if you just get one of those high school on steroids degrees, it's better than nothing, What the heck do they call that one...liberal arts? Believe it or not that degree is actually worth something. Business looking for entry level people will accept that as well as any other degree,and what's funny as heck is if you find something that really turns you on along the line later, you can use that BA as a launchpad and go on and get a masters in just about anything else , it's really nuts the way the system is set up. You could basically screw off for 4 years , to get the BA, then put your nose to the grindstone for 2 to get the MA