power engineering technology is probably the best route to get into a job... either that or a two year program where you write your 3rd and 4th.
It is basically operating stationary equipment, you will do pretty much everything to keep that equipment running unless its more major repairs and you need electricians, millrights, mechanics etc. Part of your job in many places will be 10% janitor cleaning up mess in work areas.
Then theres the chemicals...Pretty much every plant has gnarly chemicals and tonnes of them. Alot of places ship and recieve by rail or truck so you will be loading and unloading chemicals, moving rail cars around in your yard. Would you be comfortable unloading or loading rail cars full of h2s or sulpher dioxide? Thats enough chemical to wipe a town/city out.... and youll get the pleasure of working with these things.
Then theres the labour aspect.... cracking huge valves where youre reefing on them for 3-5 minutes, cleaning out heat exchangers and vessels etc.
alot of people get discouraged when they find out the reality of it..... the machines more or less run themselves, you have to clean up after them and maintain them. When processes or equipment stops running your there to shut it down and figure out how to get it running ASAP.... like done yesterday lol, managment gets excited real quick when hundreds of millions of dollars worth of plant stops spitting out product or off grade products.
I would say go to a plant and see if you can get a tour or interview an employeee... anyone thats been at it for awhile will say its a cats azz because they have a cushy co trol room job etc. my grandpa told me the only rough part was working nights, haha
Its a different job thats for sure... probably about 20% labour 10% janitor 40% walking/driving around checking on stuff and recording production taking and anylizing samples of stuff, 10% maintenance or more and maybe up to a quarte of your day appearing to be usefull or like your on payroll not jsut hanging out in a plant lol
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