I hear this kind of thing, but I have to say it is less than convincing when most of the people saying it don't seem to be sending their kids to trade school.
Allegedly, the talent pool is really shallow - with a modicum of intelligence, passion and human skills, it's not that hard to make it. But most of the guys who end up studying trades are the bottom of the barrel who would do badly in any endeavor (or so I was told).
Then, I have a couple good examples of some guys with absolutely no education whatsoever who decided to start their own cleaning services by powerwashing restaurant kitchens, doing deep cleaning. These guys doing this cleaning gig the past few years are raking in $1k cash per night, 6-7 nights a week and making more cash hand over fist than a doctor makes. It's obvious to see what is the real underlying factor in all cases. Drive, motivation, and a go-getter attitude is what it takes. Plenty of people with degrees work at coffee shops and retail positions because after schooling, they expected a job to just drop in their laps but they have no go get it attitude from the start.
The biggest difference is the ebb and flow of available work. There were some months which were good, _really_ good, and others which were quite lean. Because of this, budgeting was an important skill to have.
Yes, and imagining is what is actually happening here, because you clearly do not understand plumbing (or any of the trades).
The studies aspect of it are the least part overall. Good plumbers (and electricians and builders) get good primarily through a delightful combination of attitude and experience. The experience comes from apprenticing early, and accumulating lots of "stories" along the way as a result of having to work in a large number of different contexts.
You will get none of this while working on your STEM career, and you will likely find that most plumbers (and electricians and builders) will be reluctant to take you on as an apprentice later in life without overwhelming evidence that you'd be remarkably good at it.
It's easy to watch a youtube video on something and think that it looks easy -- until you try it. I can sweat pipes but I'd wager that 10% of them have a pinhole leak when pressurized for the first time. If it was something that I did on a daily basis, over years, I surely would get better at it. Now try doing one through a small opening in the sheetrock, and don't burn anything.
When I'm working on stuff in my house, that's when I call a professional because I recognize my limits.
Good luck apprenticing as a doctor without 6 years of medical school. Or as an architect without architecture school.
Let's not overdo the "blue collar jobs are hard to get".
I am about as far from being a professional plumber as the plumber who tinkers with python is from doing what I do.
A professional tradesmen _knows_ he can show up to your home/business and fix your problem(s) with 99.999% certainty.
If it is your first time it is going to take much, much longer. If the only way to learn is on the job then you must have an experienced plumber by your side, otherwise you're going to bill 4 hours for a 1 hour job because you are not fast enough. Your first year is going to suck or you only ever do the same few skills you have learned by taking a risk. A botched job may have a much higher impact than a bug in a CRUD app (there are always exceptions).
That's a lot of nines.
It means if you were doing 5 of these tasks a day, for 250 working days a year, you'd expect only a 50% chance of finding a task too curly to do easily in the first 550 years of your working life.
I feel like there's very few people, in any field, who've earned that level of confidence.
If I was apprenticing 20 years ago, the pretzel work would be fine, and I would probably be more willing to dig.