New - thinking about ND

...Said every debt-saddled, unemployed or underemployed college grad working at Starbuck's. An education has value to a point, but getting it at a name-brand institution like Notre Dame is borderline foolishness more and more. A far better return on investment for the OP is a CDL school or as suggested, finding companies that will train.

 

im not by any means saying that a collage education is not a good thing to have. but my other half has two associates degrees and a bachelors degree. I have a high school diploma. she works as a cashier for near minimum wage and i bring in 100k per yer. last time i had a minimum wage job i was a teenager. i have always managed to bring in a decent paycheck even before the oil fields. also a lot of fields are like trucking time out of collage before going into your field or time out of the field makes your experience and education virtually worthless. so i won't tell someone to go to collage just to go to collage, if you have a specific line of work you want to get into that requires a specific degree and you are going to follow it threw then go for it. if not don't rack up the debt just to be able to say you went to collage. anything you do in life you have to have the drive to succeed and always push. the people that don't succeed in life are the people that just want to do the minimum to get by.

 

Here are 10 tips when coming to ND.
1. Bring a car, doesn't matter what kind just something.
2. Bring money at least $1700.00 to get you by cause everything is #### expesenvie here.
3. Don't work for people on craigslist for gods sake!.
4. For the love of mankind do not work for percentage or salary! Stick to the hourly and time/half if at all possible.
5. Stay away from MBI!!!
6. If your not comfortable with -31 degrees cause thats what it was last night then DO NOT COME!
7. Don't take no crap from anyone! period!
8. Stay away from the bars in Williston and the prostitutes!
9. Leave the wife and kids at home or bring them (at your own risk).
10. Last but not least DO YOUR HOMEWORK before coming out here. Best thing to have in hand before even setting foot here is Osha 10 and H2S certifications. You can get them on their websites at an additional cost. Hope that helps!

 

Outlook is great for drivers. Be ready to change jobs when one job lies to you, cannot make payroll or fails to meet your safety expectations. I did not used to think this way but you have to take care of yourself and your golden ticket. Insist on weekly payroll, non-negotiable. In my experience, the average Bakken driver changes jobs every four months. This is due to newer breed of o/o being inexperienced and under-capitalized when they hire drivers to fill their trucks, but I have written on that topic elsewhere in this site.

My first driving job out of CDL school was hauling water in the Bakken.