Jobs that require travel??
 

I'm a junior in High School and was leaning towards a degree in Chemical Engineering but after watching the movie Up In The Air am reconsidering as I would like to have a job that requires a lot more traveling. I have always liked traveling and when i was considering a degree i didn't really think that much about it, until i went on a few trips recently and then saw the movie Up In The Air.

I have read over several other threads and they don't really say what degree's you would need for the job.

My main question was what degree should i get if i did want to have a high travel rate??
A secondary question would be what jobs would go along with that degree??

I would also like to thank everyone who replies to this as it will help me make a career and college decision.

I have an engineering and business degree. I'm now a product manager working for a German firm. I visit the home office (Germany) and factories in China and India.

Prior I was business development manager for Latin America and SE Asia.

BUT

I spent 10 years as a doodlebugger, living in 10 different countries and visiting scores of others on the 2/1 work/break ratio we had. THAT passport is very interesting to show!

My advice to you: don't choose your college degree and career path around your desire to travel. I'm a consultant and I travel every week and trust me, traveling for work is not all it's cracked up to be. The vast majority of those that travel for work do it because their profession calls for it, not because they necessarily want to. Traveling for pleasure is wonderful and awesome, but traveling for work is usually nothing but airports, hotels and offices. If you plan on having children and would like to be around for them, becoming a George Clooney is a horrible idea - you saw how his life was. Then again, if you want no life at all and very few meaningful relationships, by all means, plan your education around your desire to travel.

To me, that's a foolish thing to do.

It's Qantas.

+1 I don't know if I'd put the point quite so strongly, but basically I agree. Enjoy the rest of high school and then college, and learn a lot along the way. Then keep learning after you finish school. If you're patient, diligent and lucky, through your education and your work you'll gravitate toward whatever kind of profession and specific jobs you find rewarding. If it involves lots of travel, OK. If not, then that's OK too.

I really like my work (consulting and teaching regarding international development) and usually like each individual trip. But for the next 10 weeks I'm looking at more planes and trips than I can count. Sometimes less is more, particularly when it comes to travel.

I was a ChE grad (now in semiconductor industry) and engineers a level up from me have opportunities to travel every so often to our sister sites in the US, Singapore, and Taiwan. A friend who was a ChE in industry had opportunities to go overseas as well. We also have 2-3 year expat opportunities in Singapore and Taiwan for a chosen few. It may not be weekly travel unless you are in sales or consulting but that may not be really what you want, at least not forever. It sounds especially alluring to hop on a plane every weekend even to me, but now that I'm married with a 3 month old daughter I'd hate to be away from them every weekend. Yes they can travel with you but at your own expense. My company did pay for me to travel - out to my new site when the old one closed down. Then back again, to sell our old house. Not especially glamorous :).

Get a degree you can live with and yes corporate travel does have downsides. But if you do want the heavy travel here are your options

Chemical Engineering- I am a Chem E and it varies as to which engineers travel and ones who don't. The ones that travel a lot are in corporate engineering, Process development-R&D, and the engineers who went the business route in their career and became platform managers, technical sales, etc. The engineers who do not travel are typically managerial positions at a chemical plant.

Other jobs that I know that travel heavily
Many forms of consulting, attorney for the larger firm, finance/investment banking, sales.

Again get the degree you actually want, you are going to be working for 40+ years and there will be time for all this.

The type of company you work for has more to do with travel than any degree. Large companies doing business internationally/nation wide will need to move resources arround far more than a smaller regional business. Consulting firms are known for heavy travel. For the most part project managers and sales continue to travel.

But the reality is, things change. A few years ago pharmacutical reps were known for heavy travel and big expense budgets. Now it's rare to talk to one doing much more than limited regional travel. Who knows what changes another 5yrs will bring?

I agree with the other posters - pick a degree your interested in reguardless of potential travel.

I saw a statistic that the average college student changes their major 3x before graduating and the average american changes careers 3-5 times during their lifetime.

You'll have lots of opportunity to figure out what you want as you go. :-)

Aren't there a dozen or more threads on this topic in TravelBuzz? This comes up fairly often.

icypackattack, please do not make a career and college decision based on a movie you recently saw....

i am a partner in a law firm & travel over 150 days a year....it was great during my first year but after that i got tired of it pretty quick....i don't get to spend too much time with my wife (although i try to take her along whenever i can), don't see my family often, i miss my dogs whenever i travel, i've lost touch with a lot of friends over the last 4-5 years since i'm never around....road warriors have to give up a lot....

you have to choose a career you enjoy otherwise you will be miserable at work....the only reason i still put up with all my travel is because i love my job....

On the other hand, it's also a "waste of time" to put years of effort into countless failed relationships only to realize much too late that you are incapable of intimacy or commitment and that you should have been a road warrior all along. What the conventional wisdom values is not necessarily what works for you.

Moral of the story: YMMV.

ditto. Actually go for engineering. You can do any non-engineering job after that. The reverse direction usually requires another degree.
Moreover, get second, third and fourth languages up to fluency as well as possible and as fast as possible. And do this seriously (i.e. stay away from anybody who wants to talk to you in your native languages). Before you get out of high school, study abroad programs shall have presented themselves to you. In this day and age, you might as well even consider looking at college outside of the U.S. It may be more cost effective. Your new foreign language skills will better qualify you to do this of course.
During the 80's President Reagan got me a scholarship to study in France because I was an engineering student. French majors came a dime a dozen. (Notice the correlation of XXX major being useless in XXX country. Know the language for that country and learn something else.) These scholarships were reserved for people with industrial potential for the US.

Have you considered becoming a Flight Attendant?

Personally, go study what you find interesting. While you might grind it out for a degree that will have a good payout or because you want to travel, but you'll never be happy or satisfied unless you're doing something you like.

If you want the ultimate flexibility in terms of what to study, I'd say find a place that gives you some latitude in terms of majors and minors. My major was in Engineering and my minor was in Business, Management, and Economics. That gave me enough flexibility to choose my career path.

I'm in healthcare consulting and I average 105 - 110 flights a year and spend about 175 - 200 nights on the road. Being a road warrior involves a lot of trade offs, most of the time with your personal life. I don't really advise anyone going into my line of work purely for the travel aspect since I know too many people who have quit because of the strains the lifestyle created on their family.

That being said, if you've got nothing really tying you down , then sure, go ahead and take advantage jet setting around while you can.

oh, and welcome to Flyertalk!

Icypackattack - WTTB. FWIW, I'd add (to the excellent advice above) that I strongly recommend that you pursue a career you have a passion for, one that you can't wait to start the next day for. If you still want to travel (and travel can come in various degrees; light, moderate, heavy, etc.) then those travel opportunities will find you (or vis-a-versa). I've had many jobs over the years and some required travel, some did not. You do give up some things when on the road but do gain some things as well. Unfortunately what you see in a movie can't possibly paint the entire picture. So, pursue a career you will have a passion for and the rest will follow!
:)

thanks to everyone for posting