Frank9000

I need an outside perspective because I am biased! I have 2 years of college from when I was 18 around. (I am 30 now). Currently no debt. I have been working full time in a union job studying physics and engineering as a passion after work about 15-20 hours a week on average for the last 7-8 years... rather than working overtime because I love it. I have been doing this with the intent to create a product and sell it. I decided about 7 years ago that it would be better to work full time and study on my own, so that when I finally get the knowledge I want I could use the money I learned at top pay where I work to take some risks and rent a work studio/tools and teach myself machining, then make a product. I am finally there, with the raise and the knowledge maybe 4 months from completion.. I was just starting to look into renting a work space...and my union goes on strike. I work for a cable company in NY fixing internet and phones for business. It has been 86 days. It looks like the strike is not going to end. My plans to get a studio/workshop with expensive tools and create seems ruined... The networking business is... terrible. If I don't go back to making top pay at my company then I have to get out of it now its my last real chance. I can start from the bottom again and work my way back up somewhere... but I think it takes about 5 years to get decent pay in any new job/career path. So should I just take a loan and finish school? I don't have a degree, but yet I have the education so I wouldn't even have to study that material really... Should I try to get a job helping an engineer and work nights for an engineering degree? Might have to give up making a product for a while if I work full time and school at night. I was also thinking try to become an elevator mechanic since they at least fix motors/circuits and that interests me. I could go back to school and become say a doctor, since studying for me is a joke it would be easy... but that would be like 7-10 years and people tell me it would cost a million. I don't really want to be broke for the next 7 years. I could try to get a job as a machinist and make little money to start... but it might be the same as having my own workshop if they would let me use the tools. I think their top pay is not that great though. Average salary is only 60K. I know there are smart people here. If you were me, and you had all this knowledge with a plan that just had a huge wrench thrown in it... What would you do? My dream has been to learn physics/engineering. Make a product while I study bio/physiology/immunology/ect, then get self sufficient and work on cures to medical conditions and fun projects for the rest of my life. I want to be a bio engineer. Right now I study aerodynamics on a masters level and am finishing up machine design and some of the easier engineering things I skipped in order to do higher level physics, also organic chem.