I personally can not get enough knowledge on the trade. A while back I read somewhere that if you are in the trade, there are two types of people. You are either an elctrician or an installer. Which one is you? To me the pay is just added benefit. The Start of Alaska requires that their sparkies to attend 16 hours of approved code training. Some of the courses are online which I feel are actually harder to do but well worth it.
I frequent this and other message boards to broaden my understanding of the trade. The codes are open to interpretation. The message boards allow us sparkies to sit around a virtual watering hole and talk shop at your own convienence. The added benefit is that you are not just getting local feed back but the perspectives from around the world. Im a firm believer in that knowledge is power and in the words of Tim Allen, "MORE POWER! R-R-R!".
As an inspector, I do see more "installers" then electricians. I do not expect perfections but common and sloppy work mistakes shows me a lack of effort on some sparkies to get the job done right, they just want to be done. When I write up my inspection reports, I will reference the discrepency for several reasons to include helps me to keep my nose in the books. I encourage sparkies to stay in the books. Pick one up and reference a task that you performed, even it is a common task, like sizing a wire or the number of wires in a box or conduit. Over time, the rules can blur together and it is not easy to stay up with all the changes especially if you work in multiple jurisdictions.
