• Hischool dropout
• Repeatedly try this school thing again without much success. Learnt some electronics, though.
• Spent a few years picking up temp jobs while I tended to my hobbies. Linux and electronics, mostly. Some programming.
• Broke as fuck, desperate for a stable paycheck
• Started applying to anything that seemed vaguely interesting
• "WTF is offshore seismic survey technician?"
• Get a phone call out of the blue with an interview offer. Well, I sure wasn't gonna get the job, but they offered to fly me in for the interview in The Big City, and I had some friends there that I hadn't met in years
• Immovable event shows up, and I was looking forward to attending that.
• Fired off an email to the company asking if it was possible to reschedule. I wasn't gonna get the job anyway, so I didn't feel like I had much to lose.
• To my surprise they rescheduled. Updated flight details arrived shortly after.
• Eventually flew down, went through with the interview. Didn't perform particularly well or poorly. Nothing noteworthy, really.
• Before leaving I asked what their estimate was for reaching a conclusion.
• Had a beer with the friends down there for the first time in a year
• Flew home. Waited.
• Conclusion date arrived. Clock passed 16:00, when most businesses closed.
• "Meh, fuckit. Can't say I'm surprised"
• 21:30 or so I received an e-mail from the company with a job offer, already signed. Monthly pay far above what I imagined I'd ever be able to pull.
• Remember those hobbies? Yeah, turned out that they liked my linux and electronics hobbies, combined with me already being used to heavy machinery due to growing up on a farm.
• Kicked in the door to my flatmate. "I need you to lend me 100$" (equivalent in my currency)
• "Why?"
• "We're going out to celebrate that I won't have to borrow money from you anymore.

I left the industry in 2012 to get a "normal" job, but came back in 2019 after realizing that I hated normal jobs, and that normal jobs are for normal people. After a few promotions and being poached by a competitor I am no longer offshore, but I support the operation from wherever I am. There's still some travel to the far corners of the world for mobilizing for a new survey and that sort of stuff, but I'm mostly in my home office these days. Pays quite handsomely, though.

As for recommendations, I've been extremely lucky. Most of my coworkers have a masters degree, either in something technical or in geophysics. I guess one of those is a better choice.

But after having taken part in some of the interviews, I've learned that there aren't really that many hard requirements when it comes to skills or diplomas. It's better to find the right kind of personality who knows something useful. The rest can be taught.