Become an electrician after college

Why not?

I work with people will every level of qualification, and have rarely (if ever) seen anything but respect between people for their respective skillsets.

And what ever you do, don't let them know you can read or count above 10 without taking off your boots....

In reality, it's pretty normal for apprentices to be graduates or at an advanced stage of college when they start. This what it's like in my trade and I imagine it's the similar for electricians. The idea that apprentices are a bunch of thicks that could barely scrap a junior cert bears no relation to the real world.

Selecting and getting selected by a good company is vital, not my industry so can't comment further on the likes of Mercury or Jones engineering, but I'd imagine electrical / instrumentation apprenticeships offered by pharma companies and other large manufacturers are also a solid choice.

In my experience, the best attribute an apprentice can have is a good attitude. If they are keen, switched on and eager to dive in and get dirty the lads will be more than happy to have them along for the interesting work, it's the young lads set staring at the phone that get the crap jobs.

I started my time as a college grad of 25 and have built an excellent career.

As an electrician I'd recommend to do a instrumentation apprenticeship with a decent company if possible or else an electrical apprenticeship with a company that does MV/HV work. Both options in my opinion will allow for more/better career options down the road

Main thing with electrical trade is the company you serve your time with. The formal training will cover everything from domestic, commercial, industrial, agricultural type working environments but that is only 25% or less of the 4 years. If working with a big firm like Kirby's or Suir you could end up doing the same thing for 4 years (likely heavy duty installation work) unless you are proactive in trying to get exposure to different fields. Working with smaller companies and most of your work could be domestic and commercial type sites. Getting in to the area of PLC's and industrial manufacturing control at least to some degree while also more of the traditional electrical installation type tasks would be ideal in my view.

I did what you are doing in reverse, I did my electrical trade straight after school and then did degree studies after that and am glad I made the choice to pursue the direction I wanted to go in. Because of my experience, I may be somewhat biased but I think the electrical trade is an excellent one the range of direction you can go in is quite varied, again, if you get good training and are willing to take the opportunities to learn rather than just sticking with doing what the first company who offers you an apprenticeship will ask you to do.

You may have to convince the hiring manager that this is something you are committed to and not just a pipe dream you'll get sick of on the first wet winter day when pulling cable on an exposed site.

Should you succeed and get to the point of having the electrical trade (with decent practical exposure during it) and the business degree, you would likely be in a very strong position to advance in direction of surveying or PM'ing large projects over the next few years if you wanted to go that direction. If you wanted to stay hands on working the tools, you'd be of course able to do that also.

Good luck.

Great advice there, the important thing is to get good exposure and experience rather than getting stuck doing containment installation or general donkey work, which can happen on the larger projects with the large contractors who often use the apprentices as cheap labour and replace them when apprenticeship is over. Depending on what projects they have, they'll also expect you to move around the country or even overseas at fairly short notice. Try to do an electrical instrumentation apprenticeship as it will give you more options when you do qualify. If you have an interest in it which it sounds like you do, it's well worth it and your career could literally go anywhere after qualifying. That said I know a few lads that qualified that never worked in the industry again.

Why would anyone undermine themselves by suggesting they failed at something. I'm not suggesting the OP goes in implying they are smarter than everyone else but that they don't start on day one by telling lies either.

And the days of the apprentices having to make the tea for the journeymen stopped 20 years ago.