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What Careers Are There In 3D Printing?

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WTF 030 | Careers In 3D printing

 

During graduations and college hunting, trying to decide what the hot careers are going to be in the near future and picking your major smartly is a must. Careers in 3D printing are out in the open and ready to welcome the creatives. Today, Tom and Tracy Hazzard entice you to the complex but colorful world of 3D print. 3D is a diverse field and encompasses other trades like engineering and design. Take note of the possibilities of success you can have when you go for 3D printing.

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What Careers Are There In 3D Printing?

This is the Ask Us Anything segment.

Almost anything.

I like this question from a pretty young user about fifteen. The question is, “I’m learning to 3D print in high school. What kind of careers are there?”

I’m happy you’re asking that in high school and not in college already because you might choose the wrong college at this point. Not a lot of colleges are offering full programs here yet. Our alma mater doesn’t even. That’s a future we have to think about from a college course standpoint. Picking your college is going to be critical to this choice. There are many careers. The career possibilities are huge, but the biggest part of it is making sure that you have design skills.

Here’s the thing, we meet with a lot of people in business and successful companies. These companies get together and meet with market research people about what’s the future of business. There is so much discussion right now about how traditional manufacturing or importing businesses are going to fundamentally change in the next years because of 3D printing. They don’t all know exactly which way it’s going to go or how quickly it’s going to happen, but what they do know is that with 3D printing and more localized manufacturing, the one thing everybody’s going to need is to know what to print.

It’s not only what to print. You need bodies to design that stuff and there’s a labor shortage here. We don’t have enough designers as it is. There are not a lot of product designers out there. I can’t even believe it, but I went to a meetup and there were probably 50, 60 people there. About 10 or 15 of them didn’t even know what a product designer did. In this day and age, that’s crazy. It’s critical. We buy so much stuff.

The whole world revolves around the manufacturing of products. We all need to buy products. Somebody has to engineer and design those products.

There’s 3D modeling, 3D engineering, 3D design. All of those things together though, that’s the premium job. That is going to be the highest paying job coming out there. At one time, coders were the thing, but 3D modeling is exploding. You have to be able to do it right.

You’ve got to understand also, we are designers. We went to school of design.

We’re pushing design.

We honestly believe it is where a huge amount of jobs are going to be available in the future.

We hear a lot of people saying, “There’s STEAM.” Especially for girls, we hear this all the time, STEM. I always say STEAM. I do not believe you can take out the art. If you don’t live in the art and design part of it. The world isn’t just engineered, it’s also beautiful. We need both things combined.

WTF 030 | Careers In 3D printing

Careers In 3D printing: Things involving additive manufacturing and 3D printing are going to be the largest sector of job growth in America.

 

Think about if you’re a manufacturer or a consumer. You’re going to go into a store and have several different products to choose from. The most apparent thing about a product is how it looks. You’re going to make an emotional connection with that product. Which one do you want to buy? You’re probably going to look at the one that’s coolest first and then you’re going to think about its specs, capabilities or whatever.

It’s color too. That’s another thing, color sells. I spent my whole career doing that successfully. It’s also one of those things. Those things come from the art and design side of it. Not that you shouldn’t be studying modeling and engineering, you absolutely should. You’ve got to have a little bit of both. Find a way to fit that in, take some of those art classes if you’re in the engineering department. If you’re in the design department, take some engineering and modeling classes. Make sure you’ve got that good cross because that is going to make you so valuable. Poising yourself for that at age fifteen, you’re going to be in demand.

It’s incredibly valuable. There are many careers that are going to be blossoming in the 3D printing economy.

Even if you don’t want to go to college or you just wanted to go and get a little trade degree or something like that. I was talking to this engineer. He’s starting an engineering school like a college. He is thinking that he isn’t even going to hire someone with a degree to teach 3D printing because he doesn’t see that someone has a degree in it. They might be degreed in something, but they’re not going to be degreed in that. There’s a labor shortage. You’re going to come out of college with an actual resume that can go right into someone’s hands and you can get a job. That’s great. That’s hard to come by. It’s hard to come by anywhere out of a specific set of tech jobs.

On the horizon, things involving additive manufacturing and 3D printing are going to be the largest sector of job growth in this country.

Also, design jobs in general. How many people are out there designing their own WordPress sites? You need to have design skills in this business world. You need to have them yourself, because you’ve got PowerPoint and you’ve got all these programs that you use. Many people use them badly because they have no design principle understanding.

How are you going to make yourself stand out? Either your website and WordPress or your presentation for a board meeting or whatever it is.

Do you want to be an entrepreneur? You’re going to create all that yourself, trust me. You better have some design skills. You better be able to do some good business cards and do all of these things yourself. Those design skills are critical. I’m making sure our daughters are totally having design from now on.

It’s even important if you’re not going into design as a career. You’re going be entrepreneurial in any way or you need to set yourself apart within the corporate world. Take some courses if you can in college even just basic color theory to understand why people respond to different colors. Basic design courses will help you in the quality of your presentation of yourself.

I get that all the time. That’s why our clients come to us because they are afraid to choose a color. They’re a sales guy, they’re a marketing person, but they’ve got to take a risk and figure out what color to choose for their program. They don’t have enough experience. They don’t have enough background. They never took that. Having some of that in your background is going to make you more valuable in any career you choose. Good luck and keep studying. 3D printing is great and I’m sure you’re having fun doing it too.

It is a lot of fun. You’ve got a lot of opportunities there. Hopefully, you’ll find a good one.

If any of you out there want to ask us questions, you can ask us anything over our website HazzDesign.com. Anywhere in social media @HazzDesign, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, we’re there. You can find us and please ask us questions. We can only help you if you ask us.

Thanks for reading.

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