Anyone a Motorcycle mechanic/business owner

[01bansheefox]

I am going to school right now for computer science and engineering but im starting to loose my interest, The only thing i enjoy doing is working on quads/bikes etc.... I want to just maybe become a mechanic for these but in my area your pay=shit. Now the real pay is if you own your shop if im correct just wondering for all you people on here who do custom builds and engine work for people what did you go to school for and is it worth getting into?

[PUSH THE THROTTLE]

I am going to school right now for computer science and engineering but im starting to loose my interest, The only thing i enjoy doing is working on quads/bikes etc.... I want to just maybe become a mechanic for these but in my area your pay=shit. Now the real pay is if you own your shop if im correct just wondering for all you people on here who do custom builds and engine work for people what did you go to school for and is it worth getting into?

495993[/snapback]

How far along are you with your degrees? If you're close you should finish and get a job atleast for while. Get some experience in industry and you could get another job working at a shop or a dealership on nights and weekends. You are going to need experience, customers and $$$$ to venture out on your own. I'm an engineer and at one point in time would have liked to do the same as you, I also wanted to get an engineering job designing fourwheelers at Polaris until I met the guys who work there and I took one of them apart now I don't want anything to do with them, they are a bunch of a$$holes who don't know anything about the ways a quad should be built kinda like enforcer. I'm very very happy with my job I have now, I'm a project engineer/design engineer for offshore cranes, I've been there almost 3 years straight out of college and I've got cranes all over the world that if I took a look at them out on the rigs I can say yep that's my design and point out all the things that were my idea on them, that's pretty cool in my mind. The more important thing is as compared to all my highschool friends they are in debt up to their eyeballs and it's getting to the point that they can't live the lifestyle they thought they could (they all got jobs, no degrees) while I play with all my toys on weekends

[Cotton eyed Joe]

You never know where your degree can take you. I'm with PTT, finish your degree first and use it as a jumping off point.

 

Heres why: Out of my somewhat smallish customer base at the shop, I deal with no less than 4 engineers.

 

One is a carbon fiber spiral wound rocket motor engineer that worked with ATK/Thiokol. He now owns his own business making shit with carbon fiber and

used those years of experience (not to mention the pay) to get him started.

 

One is an electrical engineer that worked for a few years at various companies building and designing just about anything. He has his own product and a company that is worth over $20mil. He has 3 employees.

 

One is a software engineer that spent some time building and repairing flight simulators for the military. He's now working on an alternate energy power supply (I can't say much more than that right now) that so far is almost complete. He had us do alot of the mechanical design work, but he is working on all of the software and hardware components. He still has a 9 to 5 job, but he makes on the order of $45 and hour right now.

 

One is a mechanical engineer that buys repo houses from banks, refurbishes them, and rents them. This way he has a steady income so he can build show cars.

 

All of these engineers work for themselves after putting in around 10-15 years in the industry, BUT they weren't just working for 15 years then up and quit. They were working on what they wanted in life the whole time, and were just waiting for the right moment to do it. Which in all of those cases was getting their side businesess big enough that they could leave the "working sector" and do their own things without worrying about $.

[01bansheefox]

Well i am no where near done with my degree but im alot further into it than any other I guess.