live in Spfd, farm located NW Macoupin county | You are me 30 years ago.
Stopped farming full time in the fall of 1988. Moved to town and started doing construction work. Quickly realized that was not going to get me very far; made good money but nothing extra. Started back to school to earn an engineering degree. Between school part time and working, 7 years later had a degree in engineering and started working for a large equipment manufacturer. Original plan was to stay no more than 10 years and then back to the farm. But life happens.
I now have 21.75 years with the company and will soon retire with a pretty nice pension and 401K account balance.
Will I say I have not missed the full time farm- can't do that. But the monthly paycheck has been nice.
I have been able to keep my feet in farming as I had some owned ground and have built upon that a little bit over the years. So it was not a total walk away from the farm. Weekends, holidays and vacation time get consumed by the farm but that is just the way it is.
An education cannot be taken away, you will always have it. To keep the farm and work a job in town takes some time management and sacrifice but it can be done. Your work ethic and life experiences can be a benefit in the job market. Do not forget those as you move into that role if you choose to do so.
Think back about your farming operation and the work you did there and what ideas you had that could have made an improvement to a particular job. Do you like working with numbers- accountant. Do you like electronic controls- engineering ( electrical, mechanical, etc) Do you like biology/ micro-organisms- biology/environmental engineering, Are you a teacher material? Animal husbandry- Vet sciences. Crop sciences/agronomy.
Pick a college path/career that could lead you into what you like to do. |
Entertaining the Idea of Higher Education
