Interested in Metallurgy

A "Degree" in Materials Science / Metallurgy. You bust your brain around science fundamentals for the first two years, with increasing amounts of specific metallurgy building-in. Final year is kind-of the "flowering" of the course - you sweep out across applied metallurgy explaining the scientific basis of many metals processes. In the first year there was introduction to the must underlying things which make a metal a metal - crystal structure and "sea of electrons" theory leading into dislocation theory and the explanation of why metals have plasticity (they can be deformed without harm), etc. Second year it's layering-on more. It is a long path. Working in a testing laboratory, all the metals property stuff will make sense. Working in a testing laboratory and only being able to study part-time, the path will be very long. If you want a technical career, that will become your way-of-life - a journey, where the value of the journey is where it's at and the end is a pretext to give structure. In my less-than-humble opinion...