If you want to know what career path you should take, you’ll need to consider several factors. For instance, you’ll need to think about your skillset. Do you have an aptitude for anything in particular? 
You’ll also need to think about the path to get into different career fields. For instance, if you want to be a lawyer, you’ll need to study for years to pass the bar. If you’re going to be a doctor, you must study for a very long time before you can hope to get your medical license. 
In this article, we’ll talk about the construction field. There are some things to recommend it, but also some potential drawbacks that you should know. 

How Do You Get into Construction? 

If you want to get into construction as a career, one thing you should know about it is that you can do it almost anywhere. You can do it on the East Coast or West Coast. You can do it in the South, Midwest, or the Northeast. If you want to live in a particular part of the country and have construction skills, you can probably make that happen. 
For instance, construction workers in New York usually have plenty to do, and you can be part of a union as well. That is one of the best things about construction: it’s usually a union job. That’s not true with many other career paths that you can take. 
If you’re part of a union, you often have better healthcare benefits than you might get if you work doing something else. You probably have better starting pay as well. You’ll need to pay union dues, but you’ll likely feel that it’s worth it. 
As for how you get into the construction industry, you can usually do it if you finish high school or get a GED. However, some construction jobs don’t even need those things from you. You can generally get a job in construction after you finish a brief apprenticeship. 
If you take advanced math classes while in school, that should make you a more attractive candidate.  
You might not necessarily think about this at first, but construction requires a lot of math knowledge. 
If you know about tools and don’t fear heights, you should also have a better shot at getting a construction job. Knowing how to drive is also helpful, as you may need to operate machinery that works similarly to a car. 

Some Reasons to Get into Construction 

We have talked about how you can be in a union if you work in construction. That means you’ll get a pension when you retire, in addition to better healthcare and a pretty decent starting salary when you start on this career path. We’ve also talked about how you can generally work anywhere in the country, so you can travel to different places if you have wanderlust and want to see more of America. 
Apart from that, you can advance in the field if you show that you’re good at what you do. If you can keep learning as you go, you might eventually head up your own team and manage a job site. That’s when you start to make some very good money. 
Also, there’s a camaraderie with construction workers that you seldom see with other professions. It’s a blue-collar job, and you’ll often grow close to your coworkers. You might enjoy going out for beers with them after the workday ends. 
You can also build things with your hands and see a result of which you can feel proud. You can help erect a building, and it should stand there for many years to come. You can walk by it years later and know that it’s there, in part, because of you. That’s a feeling many construction workers enjoy.    

Some Potential Construction Industry Drawbacks 

Construction is not for everyone, though. For one thing, if you don’t like working with your hands, and you’re more cerebral, you won’t like this job. You’ll need to get a little dirty. This career takes grit, and if you would rather sit behind a desk and not lift things and carry them around, you should probably take a different path. 
Construction is also a dangerous industry. You might take all the precautions, but you can still hurt yourself working construction. Maybe someone drops a tool from a scaffold that hits you, or perhaps someone loses control of a vehicle and runs into you. You can fall from great heights and die or cripple yourself. 
Also, you have to get up early most days and put in some long hours. You can easily work ten or twelve-hour days. You must bundle up in the winter and go out there and work, and you’ll sweat in the summer heat. 
Besides all that, some of what appeals to a certain individual about construction might repel someone else. For instance, we mentioned how this is a blue-collar job. You might find your coworkers crude instead of welcoming. 
If you feel like you’re different from them, they likely won’t accept you as well. Before too much time passes, you should learn whether you’ll fit in well with them or whether you’re better off doing something else. 
If you want to get into construction, though, you can do it in other ways besides joining a work crew and erecting buildings. You might get into the front office end of things.  
If you study the construction industry, there’s no reason why you can’t start your own company. You’ll never have to do the physical work yourself, but you can still usually make an excellent living if you can get building contracts and you have a good head for business. 
Construction is something that has existed in this country since its inception, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Think about whether you might find it a good fit. It’s ideal for some, though maybe not so much for others.