Becoming a trucker with a college degree?

You're 23. If this is a dream, just do it. Worst case scenario you're 24 and out a couple thousand bucks. Read all you can about it and try to sift through the bitterness and cynicism. My personal guess is you will maybe become disillusioned and on to something else eventually but it will be a life experience. If you are concerned about fitting in, don't be. Welcome to the land of misfit toys.

 

Something else for you to think about before you take this leap.

Can you and your wife handle the trucking life? Yes! It's a total lifestyle change. Trucking can and will take a toll on a marriage. While you are out there for 2 weeks at a time then home for 34 hours. You are thinking what a great job you are doing providing for your family. And, you are being a great provider! But can your wife handle you being gone ALL the time? Its almost a guarantee something will happen at home, and you will be 1,500 miles away. Some wives are good with it, and get it. Most don't! So, you think. I'll go with a company where she can ride too. Can you and your wife stand each others company 24/7? Most can't! She will slow you down on the road, until she understands that ya'll aren't on vacation and can't stop every 2 hours.

 

But we all know you won't

 

I hope whatever you decide works out for you. You can talk and discuss all you want, but when it becomes reality. Then you really find out how you and your really feel.

 

I have a fear of not being accepted. I may be better off in law enforcement, but the question is if I can even get in. I don't have anything on my record, but I've always had a hard time with getting jobs that required no education or passing an academy-based program. At 19 years old, my dream was to be a U.S. marine. I was at Parris Island for about a month before I was told that I was too slow on learning and catching on to the demonstrations and I eventually was honorably discharged... but that experience proved to me that I can't be whatever I want to be in life, like some parents teach their children. If I couldn't even be accepted by the marines, why would the cops accept me? I truly believe that I have a way higher chance of being accepted by the trucking industy and that the trucker lifestyle still be a life enriching experience.

It is not important to be accepted. It is even more important to stand on your two feet on your own and be a tree capable of giving life to those such as children someday between you and your wife and to be able to provide refuge to those who are tired of the sun and seek the shade. You can even bend in the storm if necessary and stand tall. No matter what you will get through this time.

I have died 8 times in life in trucking specifically. Those are the days that started ordinary like every other day with a bit of coffee, a smoke and a little quiet time to settle the mind while putting away a very good breakfast where possible to make ready for the coming 600 miles of battle. That is what I call it a battle.

There was a illinois interstate halfway to Chicago from Marion. On that road was a flipped pickup truck. Upside down. I pulled off to the shoulder, got across with a rudimentary first aid kit. Discovered another trucker giving a kneeling holding a woman's head on his lap because she was hanging backwards over a 3 foot shoulder median strip ditch. The reason she was there on her back that far off the ground is that she was partially enjected through the back window. Being a obese woman she did not make it all the way out. The smashed truck on it's roof partially crushed the cab on her with large glass panes sawing inside her intestines almost to the spine as she breathed. She has no choice but to breathe in a potful of air and gasp in pain half of it as the glass continues to try and cut her in half. slice slice slice slice. She was not metnally organized then lost in her pain and need of air and everything.

150 feet further down the median was her husband. On his back, one leg bent unnaturally under him (Broken for sure, with a associated bleeding threat that we cannot risk moving him...) I kneeled next to him going through the ABC. Airway Breathing and Circulation. Discovered he had airway, no real breathing because his heart had quit. He was essentially dead according to my examination.

I looked up into the dark sky which became very blue to me and it began to rain. I understood then that this man is probably dead. When I looked down, a medical police man was kneeling opposite me at the body unwrapping a mask breather which is very important for hygene and defense against contractable illnesses when you attempt mouth to mouth.

I told that policeman I am trained in CPR but due to the intensity of the wife in that pickup I am unable to function. It's a very very very small detail but I could not recall the proper procedure which I had done before. Primarily the solar plexus which is very important where the ribs join over the liver and diagphram. Your fists has to be on there just so at the sternum or you can kill the person or damage him or her very badly.

The police man was 3 steps ahead of me and he was sharp. He told me that it's ok don't worry about it more help is coming very fast.

To this day I feel powerfully strong conflicts because it's a very strong detail in CPR which I have done several times to a T just like I have been taught long ago. But because of the situation, the stress of the whole thing combined with the conviction that death is on the wing and my feelings I was not able to recall the necessary detail to safely work on this man myself or in teamwork with the police man.

I went back to check on the wife being sawed in half and checked the gasoline dripping from the upside down fuel cap. Then I examined the rest of the vehicle seeking any kind of short, fire most particulary and so on. Additional help was arriving. People were moving with a purpose. I was finished there. So I climbed back into the truck and moved on down the road to chicago.

The spouse did not say a word. It was three days before I started talking. I never leave people who might have a chance because you cannot save all of them but also you cannot leave those that you might actually be able to help properly in some small way.

Keep in mind that this is just one story in my trucking life as it happened. It was a very difficult day, a intense day. Not everyone is going to see the sunset. But if that is me, Im going to meet the Lord with happy feet no regrets at that time when he calls me home. I was not able to save everyone in my life and I was able to save myself 8 times.

Your days will begin so ordinary just like all the other days of your life. WHAT you do with your day to help others, do what you can do in work that YOU ENJOY, whatever it is... that is the key.

You do not work to make a dollar and pay the stupid bills demanded of you by our Society and this filthy materislitic world. You work because you enjoy it. I knew I was going to be an american trucker by the time I hit 6 and lived for the day I grew up enough to get that license, get the truck and go get loaded and rolling. I could not stand it when grown ups ask me stupid questions like what college and I going to when I grow up.

I'll die a American trucker to the last day of my life. It is a singular purpose that I have immensely enjoyed in my life and even today I look forward to more of it with a body that simply cannot do it.

I have done everything I set out to do in life with one exception. Raising children. Trucking is not for families and children. THAT was the price of my lifetime running a 40 ton 18 wheeler down the road with a 48000 pound of potatoes for Atlanta Georgia from Idaho above Salt Lake City.

I know Atlanta will enjoy those wonderful big potatoes growing well long before I got there to load it. They don't know me. Im a nobody. But them taters on the dinner table all over Atlanta delivered right without damage or loss and so on says I did my work well.

On to the next load. Most people flop around in life dabbling this dabbling that never really having a purpose or goal.

Find something you like to do. Make a lifetime out of it and you will NEVER work a day in your life.

I promise you that. But not everyone is going to see the sunset today. I hope that when your time comes, you will understand you have lived your life and enjoyed all your days without actually enduring make work or some stupid useless flopping around.

Decide what you want to do, go do it. Everything else is BS.

 

Degrees don’t expire. If you still feel/think the same after graduation then the answer is obvious. Once your degree is in stone you can always fall back on that. U may love trucking, u may hate it, but it’s a vital part of American economics and American standard of living, im sure others will say this too, but welcome on in. Try it out, or move on.

Keep reading and researching on here and etc, start making budgets, & take a lot of the talk as “grains of salt” or however the saying goes. Take a whole bunch of opinions and start making your own. Then once you develop an experience, you’ll be apart of the opinions. Just be safe and respect the trade, and chances are you’ll find smiling faces and helping hands along the way.

Good luck

 

A pulseless person will die for certain if you do nothing.

You can't "kill or damage"a dead person.

You will break their ribs while performing CPR. This may, in turn, lacerate their liver, causing internal bleeding. On the other hand, the CPR is giving the person a 35% better chance of surviving than if you do nothing.

 

Where are you at in the program and what is your location? Are you close to a Metro area with more jobs related to Criminal Justice such as the labs or facilities that manage Forensic evidence?

You say you're still going to finish the degree. Have you been placed in a good Internship yet? That should help you feel out what you think of this career and ability to learn or work as part of a team. You should reach out to recruiters or even Criminal Justice discussion forums to learn more about the 'Real World' version of this beyond the 'Academic' stuff you are learning.

You might still conclude you can't do this job because of a learning obstacle, but it's worth talking to people to give it a chance.

I relate to what the Op is saying. I think I'm in this industry for similar reasons. I'm a yard spotter now and bump docks to a warehouse everyday shuttling trailers. I see the guys working indoors and I've tried doing warehouse job before and failed horribly. It's the craziest thing that I've driven an 18 wheeler successfully before transferring to a yard spotter gig within my company(just for the home time), yet I was quickly fired from a warehouse job I tried before that. I fail at things that are strongly Team oriented.

I think part of the problem is not just with the Op, but modern 'corporate' work culture. I also think some people are smart, but have a different learning style, a lot of talent get squandered as they're forced to pursue solo work either as Truck Drivers or on Night Shift jobs.

I suppose the Op could consider private security night work, but that probably won't pay for their degree.