HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. – A Huntersville resident is getting national attention, after "jack of all trades" man and Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe featured her in his message to graduates last week.

After deciding a path toward medicine wasn’t for her, welder Chloe Hudson left her undergraduate degree to instead to get an associate degree in Applied Sciences, majoring in welding.

Now the 27 year old has her dream job, making six figures, and doing what she loves everyday, debt free.

And while the culture of higher education seems unpredictable, Hudson hopes more seniors will consider trades.

"I have zero student debt, completely paid for college out of pocket while I was working and that scholarship, I get to travel for work you know,” Hudson says. “Now I live by myself, I have my own house, my own truck. It’s afforded me opportunities that hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt would not have.”

Hudson just started that dream job on March 1, at Joe Gibbs Aerospace.