In a world where nothing seems sure anymore what would you do? Would you bother getting an education? When knowledge becomes meaningless is there a reason to learn?
This would interest me as an employer of tech people. Interest in topics like ML/AI or quantum computing or crypto algorithms or reverse engineering all show that you're capable of figuring out complex technical issues without help from others.
I recommend looking into their native strengths[1] first, as that will create a foundation for really wise use of their most stable, sustainable career energy.
StrengthsFinder / CliftonStrengths and Sally Hogshead's _How the World Sees You_ are great examples to look into. The USG also offers free career testing tools that are definitely worth a shot. Many schools also have career learning paths that offer other resources of this kind.
From that point, you should have a good starter set of tools that allow one to design the needed career outcome no matter what has changed in the world.
In addition to strengths, it's also a good idea to pay special attention to the "not interesting" and "less strengths in this area" measures/results, since those will helpfully indicate exhausting careers or jobs to avoid, even if they may seem interesting for hobby-type energy.
Good luck to you both, I know a lot's been changing recently.
1. These kinds of strengths are more about the energy one can consistently and flexibly commit to a specific set of perspectives on life and creativity, like for hours each day without prompting, and less about "is a talented artist," "can code," etc.
One thing that should be emphasized to children is the necessity to earn a decent livelihood with a job that leaves them enough time to pursue their other interests. It is important to do something remunerative, but also balance it with occupational outlook and individual interests. Of course, individual interests can and do change over time, so they should be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly as a 16-year old.
#4 fastest growing is "Motion picture projectionists" and is expected to grow by 40% by 2031. Which looks to mean that it will grow from 1,620 to 2,268 jobs.
There are other fast-growing occupations that pay way less than others. For example, wind turbine service technician pays way less than the top fastest-growing occupation.
Yes. It is your life. It isn't about what is out there. It's about what's in you.
My kids are 19, 17, 12. I tell them- you're not going to college to get an education that is about knowledge out in the world. You are going to get an education about you. To learn about your person- your body, your brain, your own mental model of your self and other selves and the world.
Your person is still in physical growth mode until at least 25, and then you have lots of other changes and challenges coming after that. You will continue learning, including about your self, throughout the entirety of your life. To be set up to do that is why you're going.
(Yes, college is not the real world, in any way. But in important ways it is real enough.)
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The most important things to be able to do are- build relationships, focus and concentrate, organize your self and your thinking, communicate, have fun, and take care of the physical self. You don't have any idea, really, how well you do those things as a teenager. It's the job of the adults around you to help. College is an opportunity to expose your person to more unique, distinct, varied, skilled adults and peers than at any time previous, and for some, more than they will ever get again (unfortunately). That exposure is the most intense learning the self can do.
For each of my kids, they have things they are good at now, and things they are not good at. Not just skills- capabilities. Biases. Potentials, not actuals. As their parent I have a good sense of possible distinct and unique trajectories for each of them given those potentials, and I do what I can to coach them onto those various trajectories and in specific work domain disciplines that are potential fits (to my eyes) for them. But that's a conversation that is specific to our relationship. And their lives are their own.
For you, I would encourage you to see yourself not even at the beginning of your adventure, and to think hard and figure out good ways, with the guidance of adults you currently respect and trust, to avail yourself and position yourself to be exposed to and learn from new adults worthy of respect and trust. And pay it forward, too.
> I tell them- you're not going to college to get an education that is about knowledge out in the world. You are going to get an education about you. To learn about your person- your body, your brain, your own mental model of your self and other selves and the world.
You can do the same thing while on the job. Presumably, you could even learn faster, as you will be in a real-life environment, with real responsiblities, real people, real constraints etc. Whereas college is basically a bizarre form of retirement - a 4 year long "retirement" young people take before starting working. Yes, they learn some things there as well, but most of that knowledge is not needed and is just an excuse to spend time in college (for students) and to charge hefty fees (for universities).
Historically, US colleges were finishing schools for the wealthy - and now, most of us are wealthy enough to spend 4 years like this [1]. Unfortunately, since so many people finish college, a college degree is now a requirement for many fairly basic jobs - which means that not going to college closes many doors for people.
[1] Tragically, many people can only afford it through crippling student debt, which they take because they can't see the big picture at 19 yo. We don't allow 19 year old people to drink beer because they're too young to handle it, but we allow them to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt... European (where I am from) solution is to just fully cover college from taxes. This way, we probably have even higher college attendance than in the US (i.e. even more wasted time and money in total), but at least the amenities are very basic and there's no parasitic admin overhead - so, I'm guessing we spend much less on higher ed per capita.
I feel like this is not the right message to send to a 16 year old asking what the meaning of life is. Sure college is a scam and no 20 year old needs to go to a learning resort with a lazy river. But also, plenty of jobs are quite useful to go to college (although most of those are stem jobs). Like you probably aren't going to get into biotech, geo-engineering, physics, without at least one degree. Well I suppose you can do biotech without a degree if you are Elizabeth Holmes but she went to jail so maybe it's a bad idea.
I've seen many people struggle and regret their decision to study subjects at university that didn't point more directly to rewarding careers with reasonable market demand, and I worry that the way you describe university education risks falling into the same trap.
Education is less about knowledge but more about connections and interactions nowadays. Some lucrative positions only hire from small groups. So yeah I'd aim for the best university.
About knowledge itself, find something you are interested in and drill deep. I know it's cliche but unfortunately that's the only way to have a meaningful life without relying on someone else (I'm trying to say you can have a meaningful life by doing something different but that usually relies on someone else e.g. getting a kid).
Other than that get healthy and exercise often.
Of course if you have well connected parents then it's a different story.
Don't let all the hype get to you. There will be al kinds of jobs, agriculture, construction, technology, Healthcare, etc. Get an education but be smart about it. Go to a State school locally and keep the cost down, get a degree for under 50k.
Agreed!
PLEASE don't spend $100k+ on your degree. I think there are very few fields that put a lot of weight on WHERE you went to college (to a certain extent; you don't want to go too low with some fly-by-night school).
You can get a good degree from a state or local university and save a lot of student debt.
And try to get an internship. Or else volunteer somewhere to get some work experience.
> In a world where nothing seems sure anymore what would you do?
Assuming you're talking about the job market, nothing was sure at any given point in time. Of course, after the fact everything seems "obvious" but I assure you at the time it wasn't.
The only thing I would be my cards os is studying medicine: If you become a surgeon you'll most likely make lots of money, the downside is that it takes lots of work and time to do so.
Whatever you do, from chef and small business retail owner to startups - make sure you're good at what you do and you won't have to worry about the market.
> Would you bother getting an education?
If you are _really good_ at programming (e.g. you already know how to program relatively complex CRUD applications) my advice is to study something else e.g. Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Social Sciences, etc. Diversified profiles are the most sought after.
Going to college is not just about learning CS (or whatever) fundamentals. It is about friendships, having fun, entering adulthood. Try to take advantage of the Erasmus system, travel as much as you can, as cheaply as you can, meet ppl, do crazy shit while staying on track with your classes. It is important to "exit" student's life within the expected time frame, helps a lot.
> When knowledge becomes meaningless is there a reason to learn?
Knowledge is _never_ meaningless. Most of the _experts_ on any given field have lots of knowledge that at first glance might seem irrelevant but they're able to mix and match in order to advance the knowledge on a specific field.
My guess is that you're referring to modern tech stacks. Often times seasoned users complain about how "this" or "that" stack has nothing new to offer apart from X which was already a thing 15 years ago with a different name. That's part because of age - we all become a bit of a whiners when getting old - but primarily because the already knew the old tech stack inside out so they can analyse, break down and understand the decisions (good and bad) of the new stack on the fly. When your time comes you'll have to learn to current tech stack and make your own decisions.
I work with surgeons and the running joke is that practical procedure based medicine just sucks - the hours, the physical work, the hospital, the conflicts and politics. It’s all truly brutal.
However I do agree 100% with what you said. Witnessing them fixing a newborn infant was an insane experience for me and I was super jealous.
What they recommend is still medicine, but the non-practical fields - prescribing medications, designing and administering complex treatments from the comfort of an office.
My personal take is that everything and anything medical will never ever go away as long as there are humans. I love the fact I get to work in both a software dev world and the medical world. Software still can do so much for that.
> make sure you're good at what you do and you won't have to worry about the market
No... make sure you strive to do the best you can in whatever you do. It's not about being "good enough". If you care about your work (whatever it may be), be a good human, and put in effort to learn and do the best you can at your given job - you will succeed.
Don't be afraid to take chances when you're young.
Being good at what you do is a side effect of caring about what you do and putting in the effort to learn about your job, your industry and the people around you.
I agree that plumbers will always be valuable, but the market we’re in is in no way efficient. People are not compensated by their value. The ideal rate to pay a plumber is as little as you can get away with, and that could just drop.
Consider this — there’s more and more rental properties, and so less people who want to maintain their plumbing properly. There will likely be more “lowest bidder” work, and so the rates will drop. The quality of plumbing will drop, the pride in the trade will drop.
I've seen comments on Reddit claiming six-figure, part-time jobs in the skilled trades. To which I have responded: the more you talk about it, the faster you'll lose it. Motivated supply will fix any power imbalance in the field.
You answered your own question — the future is too uncertain to give you a great answer to that question. Suppose you go to college and hit the job market at 22. You’re trying to predict 6 years out, which is really hard.
Knowledge isn’t meaningless. It’ll never be meaningless. Or rather, there will always be experts, it’s just not clear in what and how many. Stay agile and get good at something you see as there being a demand for one day. This probably isn’t something that there’s demand for today. You have to use your imagination a bit, but you can’t really go wrong with mastering basically anything. You always learn. Make sure you do something you can be passionate in and hold interest in. Focus goes a long way. You will, after enough time of navigating this, have accrued a very unique set of skills that can be crossed with one another to solve very interesting problems. You’ll always do well if you can be a good problem solver.
This may sound odd but I would recommend a trade that cannot be easily replaced by AI. Something like an electrician or roofer. Then try to get an apprenticeship with an older professional and learn as much as you can. Skip college completely and just start a business instead. You will be so much better off financially compared to say, a lawyer who will be in debt for a while and who’s job is about to be made obsolete by AI.
Have you ever done roofing? There are few occupations which will destroy your back faster than roofing. Everybody in construction knows you always outsource roofing if you can; better to feel sorry for the poor folks (usually literally quite poor) stuck doing that work than to be the one people feel sorry for.
Road construction might be worse, though.
Note well: No roofer or road construction worker would tell someone to skip college. If college is in the cards, just go to college and get it over with. Even if you never use your degree, it would still be the right decision, so long as you didn't take on a ton of debt going to a private school. (If the thought of slogging through college is off-putting, know that a lifetime of manual labor will be even worse. School is work, and if you can't make yourself suffer through that, you are very likely going to be even more disappointed with the choices manual or unskilled labor throw your way.)
Nah. Get an education in something you enjoy and that pays well. In the event that AI does replace your job, you can learn a manual labor trade quickly.
Blue collar means spending your youth with tough physical labour surrounded by grumpy men to make some even angrier old man richer - while your friends are in college partying with fun girls and making contacts for easy jobs. Some people can be successful in a blue collar career, but the odds are you'll be abused, dogged and low paid. For that experience, you are better off spending your youth in the hospitality business, where you'll at least have fun workmates.
Blue collar work is the back bone of our material world, but I just cannot see it as a smart choice for a 16 year old. There is a lot of crap attitude among blue collar workers, and if you don't fit in culturally you'll be miserable, even if you're good at your job. Maybe things will have changed in a couple of years, who knows? But the skills are great to learn and know!
Starting a business is very sound advice for those who have it in them. Learning skills by working for yourself gives you a better paying business, while learning skills by working for somebody else gives them a better paying business. But you need to know at least something if you want to have a real business.
But I know so many grumpy old engineers and IT people!
Every job has it's hazards. I say try a number of them myself. Manual work is good for people, especially young people (in my opinion). I don't know about 30 years of back breaking labor though.
> Manual work is good for people, especially young people (in my opinion).
I complete agree! Manual work is great for the mind and spirit. That's why gyms and sports became so popular in the 80s and forward. But getting a job in manual labour, odds are much higher that you will be doing the back breaking stuff - or working for an asshole boss. That inverts the situation and the work becomes bad for the mind and spirit.
Manual work is best done for yourself, or being the boss, or for a good company with decent pay if you're extremely lucky to find it. I'd switch IT to manual work in a heartbeat if it came with competitive pay and some decency and respect in the workplace.
>while your friends are in college partying with fun girls and making contacts for easy jobs
Most of those people are making extremely bad life decisions and you will be significantly more wealthy before they've even left college. The best way to make money is to have money, you have a massive edge if you literally just start working early, live with your parents and stay the hell away from debt. It's a simple formula, and it's how I managed to climb my way into the middle-class.
A good thing about blue-collar is that it will make you tough and keep you fit, and you will also learn to socialize properly with people from different generations, as well as being able to absorb whatever experience they might have gained over the decades they've lived.
Resounding yes for getting an education. Learning to think and being thrown in with random other people will serve you well. I agree that learning a hands-on skill adjacent to whatever you study is valuable.
I think the unspoken context here is you want the aforementioned 16 year old to have a decent income over their lifetime.
I think doing something they're interested in has a lot of merit, though at age 16 they may not have experienced enough different things to know for sure.
I'm not sure why you think knowledge is meaningless. Everyone is panicking about AI, but honestly, I've yet to see an AI produced document that's competent or a line of AI generated code that's useful. Yes... it can produce things that are at 80% of what you might want and that means that you (the human) may only have to spend half your time editing AI generated content.
I don't think Lawyers or Doctors or College Professors are going to be replaced with AI. But I think each of these professions will need to develop expertise in working with evolving technology.
How 'bout Literature? Granted, it's not the royal road to wealth my creative writing instructor implied, but it's great fun. And if you love reading and writing, you'll probably maintain the level of motivation needed for an advanced degree, so maybe Literature Professor?
Or spend some time in the military. I spent a few years in the Marines in the middle of my college experience. It made me realize a few things: 1. I don't want a career in the military and 2. I would love to have a job that got me out of the office on a regular basis. But there are plenty of people who love the military and make it a career.
Have you asked your 16 year old what they want to do?
Depends on the 16 year old. Making money should be a priority for everyone who isn't rich. Be well enough to take care of yourself before you pursue careers that have no financial benefit.
But that said, you can get paid good enough for most desires and inclinations you have.
But taking a step back here, what I have seen with kids that age is either they already have a passion or you need to shove them very hard towards different directions and see what they like. They're usually lacking in exposure. Maybe they'll like coding and computer stuff but they have no exposure. At that age I was barely fostering a coding hobby but haven't really gotten into infosec myself. Down the road I tried different things and I was very surprised at what I liked and did not like. I apparently don't have a fear of heights (scary but I can manage) and I hate long-haul trucking.
But my standing advice is to get a degree in something practical no matter what.
If they lean to technical stuff have them pursue EE, social justice? Law or languages and literature, like to work with hands? Mechanical engineering, medicine? RN
If you are an EE grad for example it is not hard to get into coding, IT or security. Or manufacturing and designing hardware, and anything with electrons. Plan to get two degrees, one before you're 23 and another before 30 after you figured out what you really like.
I know that a lot of people would disagree with this, but having gotten an EE degree I can say that it was one of the most important things I ever did in my life. It was hard. But it was transformative. An engineering degree forces you to learn how to identify problems, use science, use math, solve problems, be creative, work together and most importantly cut corners to get to usable solutions as quickly as possible.
I took 5 years and did a co-op job experience with my degree. I was able to socialize a little, but I’m not going to lie—-the program demands a lot of study time. So there isn’t much time for partying on weeknights.
With an engineering degree, you can go and do so many different things for work. I can’t imagine the skills you learn ever getting stale. And it’s great for future entrepreneurs.
Knowledge won't become meaningless. Even in a world where AI becomes ubiquitous, AI will keep getting stuff wrong and it will ultimately be down to humans to correct that.
do things that are actually interesting to you, even if they seem weird or nonsensical to people as little as 5 years older.
Imagine wanting to be a professional videogame... anything in 2000? Or thinking there is a way to make money on, gasp, Fantasy Football? etc. etc.
I firmly believe if there is a subject that interests you deeply and you know there are other people also deeply interested in it, there is money to be made there not to mention a purposeful, impactful life to be enjoyed around it.
There is a fine line between landing on something that allows you to capitalize on your passion (e.g. VR in 2010) and doing something truly obscure (e.g. collecting memorabilia or something) that nobody except for a handful other people would truly care about.
If you're 16 and see something that resonates with you, that's also something a sizable amount of your friend care about, but nobody in the higher age bracket understands, chances are you are privy to a secret map to a generational goldmine.
Or you can just bury yourself alive in finance sector.
When I was getting into programming, everyone was warning me that the jobs would all be outsourced soon. That didn't happen, or not in any kind of apocalyptic way.
I'm not certain what you're concerned about, so I'll address a couple of things.
The job market is in a rough place. This happens. It's a pendulum that never stops swinging. Make yourself useful somewhere and hope for the best. If you're paid well and smart with money, you can weather the storms.
AI is making crazy, disturbing advancements right now. However, it is not even close to being able to fully replace a human in a programming or similarly technical job (I'm not an AI researcher, but that's my observation). It's a good time to get familiar with these tools, because it seems very likely that we'll all be using them in some capacity, rather than working for them. This is not hugely different from the computer revolution we already went through.
So yes, get an education. For your own enjoyment/self-fulfillment if nothing else.
Whatever you do, focus on a deep specialization. Find something you really love then become a profound expert in it. Education is absolutely critical in a world where you are either telling machines what to do or being told what to do by a machine.
I agree with this one. Specialise, and then branch out if you like into a second or third specialisation. People who say "stay generalist" - I don't know what they mean. Maybe they mean "people/project management", but that is still a specialisation.
At your age, I'd be a generalist and do as much exploring and learning as you are able. After you have plenty of experience, then examine specializing more.
Me, I'm 50 and have been a generalist all my life. People have told me all my life to specialize but I didn’t ever listen.
It's fun, and I never get bored with it. And I've been in the game long enough that I could probably be considered a "specialist" in many different areas. I generally have a better cross-system understanding of things than most.
"In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? I propose instead that you don't commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now, and choose those that will give you the most promising range of options afterward."
LLM usefulness is rapidly reaching a plateau and I suspect the hype (and anxiety) will die down soon. Also as someone who uses LLMs daily they are far from being a silver bullet to everything and it doesn’t appear to be changing in the near future. Go study CS and enjoy your education, you will be needed!
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 193 ms ] threadI don't know what the future holds, but a Github profile with a history of AI experimentation seems like it would look good on a resume.
StrengthsFinder / CliftonStrengths and Sally Hogshead's _How the World Sees You_ are great examples to look into. The USG also offers free career testing tools that are definitely worth a shot. Many schools also have career learning paths that offer other resources of this kind.
From that point, you should have a good starter set of tools that allow one to design the needed career outcome no matter what has changed in the world.
In addition to strengths, it's also a good idea to pay special attention to the "not interesting" and "less strengths in this area" measures/results, since those will helpfully indicate exhausting careers or jobs to avoid, even if they may seem interesting for hobby-type energy.
Good luck to you both, I know a lot's been changing recently.
1. These kinds of strengths are more about the energy one can consistently and flexibly commit to a specific set of perspectives on life and creativity, like for hours each day without prompting, and less about "is a talented artist," "can code," etc.
One thing that should be emphasized to children is the necessity to earn a decent livelihood with a job that leaves them enough time to pursue their other interests. It is important to do something remunerative, but also balance it with occupational outlook and individual interests. Of course, individual interests can and do change over time, so they should be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly as a 16-year old.
#4 fastest growing is "Motion picture projectionists" and is expected to grow by 40% by 2031. Which looks to mean that it will grow from 1,620 to 2,268 jobs.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes393021.htm
My kids are 19, 17, 12. I tell them- you're not going to college to get an education that is about knowledge out in the world. You are going to get an education about you. To learn about your person- your body, your brain, your own mental model of your self and other selves and the world.
Your person is still in physical growth mode until at least 25, and then you have lots of other changes and challenges coming after that. You will continue learning, including about your self, throughout the entirety of your life. To be set up to do that is why you're going.
(Yes, college is not the real world, in any way. But in important ways it is real enough.)
==
The most important things to be able to do are- build relationships, focus and concentrate, organize your self and your thinking, communicate, have fun, and take care of the physical self. You don't have any idea, really, how well you do those things as a teenager. It's the job of the adults around you to help. College is an opportunity to expose your person to more unique, distinct, varied, skilled adults and peers than at any time previous, and for some, more than they will ever get again (unfortunately). That exposure is the most intense learning the self can do.
For each of my kids, they have things they are good at now, and things they are not good at. Not just skills- capabilities. Biases. Potentials, not actuals. As their parent I have a good sense of possible distinct and unique trajectories for each of them given those potentials, and I do what I can to coach them onto those various trajectories and in specific work domain disciplines that are potential fits (to my eyes) for them. But that's a conversation that is specific to our relationship. And their lives are their own.
For you, I would encourage you to see yourself not even at the beginning of your adventure, and to think hard and figure out good ways, with the guidance of adults you currently respect and trust, to avail yourself and position yourself to be exposed to and learn from new adults worthy of respect and trust. And pay it forward, too.
You can do the same thing while on the job. Presumably, you could even learn faster, as you will be in a real-life environment, with real responsiblities, real people, real constraints etc. Whereas college is basically a bizarre form of retirement - a 4 year long "retirement" young people take before starting working. Yes, they learn some things there as well, but most of that knowledge is not needed and is just an excuse to spend time in college (for students) and to charge hefty fees (for universities).
Historically, US colleges were finishing schools for the wealthy - and now, most of us are wealthy enough to spend 4 years like this [1]. Unfortunately, since so many people finish college, a college degree is now a requirement for many fairly basic jobs - which means that not going to college closes many doors for people.
[1] Tragically, many people can only afford it through crippling student debt, which they take because they can't see the big picture at 19 yo. We don't allow 19 year old people to drink beer because they're too young to handle it, but we allow them to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt... European (where I am from) solution is to just fully cover college from taxes. This way, we probably have even higher college attendance than in the US (i.e. even more wasted time and money in total), but at least the amenities are very basic and there's no parasitic admin overhead - so, I'm guessing we spend much less on higher ed per capita.
Oddly enough, most countries think that a person who is legally responsible for their own decisions is also mature enough to handle alcohol [0]...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age
About knowledge itself, find something you are interested in and drill deep. I know it's cliche but unfortunately that's the only way to have a meaningful life without relying on someone else (I'm trying to say you can have a meaningful life by doing something different but that usually relies on someone else e.g. getting a kid).
Other than that get healthy and exercise often.
Of course if you have well connected parents then it's a different story.
Good luck!
Assuming you're talking about the job market, nothing was sure at any given point in time. Of course, after the fact everything seems "obvious" but I assure you at the time it wasn't.
The only thing I would be my cards os is studying medicine: If you become a surgeon you'll most likely make lots of money, the downside is that it takes lots of work and time to do so.
Whatever you do, from chef and small business retail owner to startups - make sure you're good at what you do and you won't have to worry about the market.
> Would you bother getting an education?
If you are _really good_ at programming (e.g. you already know how to program relatively complex CRUD applications) my advice is to study something else e.g. Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Social Sciences, etc. Diversified profiles are the most sought after.
Going to college is not just about learning CS (or whatever) fundamentals. It is about friendships, having fun, entering adulthood. Try to take advantage of the Erasmus system, travel as much as you can, as cheaply as you can, meet ppl, do crazy shit while staying on track with your classes. It is important to "exit" student's life within the expected time frame, helps a lot.
> When knowledge becomes meaningless is there a reason to learn?
Knowledge is _never_ meaningless. Most of the _experts_ on any given field have lots of knowledge that at first glance might seem irrelevant but they're able to mix and match in order to advance the knowledge on a specific field.
My guess is that you're referring to modern tech stacks. Often times seasoned users complain about how "this" or "that" stack has nothing new to offer apart from X which was already a thing 15 years ago with a different name. That's part because of age - we all become a bit of a whiners when getting old - but primarily because the already knew the old tech stack inside out so they can analyse, break down and understand the decisions (good and bad) of the new stack on the fly. When your time comes you'll have to learn to current tech stack and make your own decisions.
Wish you success in your life.
However I do agree 100% with what you said. Witnessing them fixing a newborn infant was an insane experience for me and I was super jealous.
What they recommend is still medicine, but the non-practical fields - prescribing medications, designing and administering complex treatments from the comfort of an office.
My personal take is that everything and anything medical will never ever go away as long as there are humans. I love the fact I get to work in both a software dev world and the medical world. Software still can do so much for that.
No... make sure you strive to do the best you can in whatever you do. It's not about being "good enough". If you care about your work (whatever it may be), be a good human, and put in effort to learn and do the best you can at your given job - you will succeed.
Don't be afraid to take chances when you're young.
Being good at what you do is a side effect of caring about what you do and putting in the effort to learn about your job, your industry and the people around you.
Plumbing for example, requires both knowledge, and hands on work. Plumbers won't be replaced until both AI and Robotics advance cosiderably.
Consider this — there’s more and more rental properties, and so less people who want to maintain their plumbing properly. There will likely be more “lowest bidder” work, and so the rates will drop. The quality of plumbing will drop, the pride in the trade will drop.
Knowledge isn’t meaningless. It’ll never be meaningless. Or rather, there will always be experts, it’s just not clear in what and how many. Stay agile and get good at something you see as there being a demand for one day. This probably isn’t something that there’s demand for today. You have to use your imagination a bit, but you can’t really go wrong with mastering basically anything. You always learn. Make sure you do something you can be passionate in and hold interest in. Focus goes a long way. You will, after enough time of navigating this, have accrued a very unique set of skills that can be crossed with one another to solve very interesting problems. You’ll always do well if you can be a good problem solver.
Road construction might be worse, though.
Note well: No roofer or road construction worker would tell someone to skip college. If college is in the cards, just go to college and get it over with. Even if you never use your degree, it would still be the right decision, so long as you didn't take on a ton of debt going to a private school. (If the thought of slogging through college is off-putting, know that a lifetime of manual labor will be even worse. School is work, and if you can't make yourself suffer through that, you are very likely going to be even more disappointed with the choices manual or unskilled labor throw your way.)
Starting a successful business is not easy.
As with software you can get competent quickly, but quality comes with time and effort.
Blue collar work is the back bone of our material world, but I just cannot see it as a smart choice for a 16 year old. There is a lot of crap attitude among blue collar workers, and if you don't fit in culturally you'll be miserable, even if you're good at your job. Maybe things will have changed in a couple of years, who knows? But the skills are great to learn and know!
Starting a business is very sound advice for those who have it in them. Learning skills by working for yourself gives you a better paying business, while learning skills by working for somebody else gives them a better paying business. But you need to know at least something if you want to have a real business.
Every job has it's hazards. I say try a number of them myself. Manual work is good for people, especially young people (in my opinion). I don't know about 30 years of back breaking labor though.
I complete agree! Manual work is great for the mind and spirit. That's why gyms and sports became so popular in the 80s and forward. But getting a job in manual labour, odds are much higher that you will be doing the back breaking stuff - or working for an asshole boss. That inverts the situation and the work becomes bad for the mind and spirit.
Manual work is best done for yourself, or being the boss, or for a good company with decent pay if you're extremely lucky to find it. I'd switch IT to manual work in a heartbeat if it came with competitive pay and some decency and respect in the workplace.
Most of those people are making extremely bad life decisions and you will be significantly more wealthy before they've even left college. The best way to make money is to have money, you have a massive edge if you literally just start working early, live with your parents and stay the hell away from debt. It's a simple formula, and it's how I managed to climb my way into the middle-class.
A good thing about blue-collar is that it will make you tough and keep you fit, and you will also learn to socialize properly with people from different generations, as well as being able to absorb whatever experience they might have gained over the decades they've lived.
(Don't get me wrong... for me, "very droll" is a complement.)
I think doing something they're interested in has a lot of merit, though at age 16 they may not have experienced enough different things to know for sure.
I'm not sure why you think knowledge is meaningless. Everyone is panicking about AI, but honestly, I've yet to see an AI produced document that's competent or a line of AI generated code that's useful. Yes... it can produce things that are at 80% of what you might want and that means that you (the human) may only have to spend half your time editing AI generated content.
I don't think Lawyers or Doctors or College Professors are going to be replaced with AI. But I think each of these professions will need to develop expertise in working with evolving technology.
How 'bout Literature? Granted, it's not the royal road to wealth my creative writing instructor implied, but it's great fun. And if you love reading and writing, you'll probably maintain the level of motivation needed for an advanced degree, so maybe Literature Professor?
Or spend some time in the military. I spent a few years in the Marines in the middle of my college experience. It made me realize a few things: 1. I don't want a career in the military and 2. I would love to have a job that got me out of the office on a regular basis. But there are plenty of people who love the military and make it a career.
Have you asked your 16 year old what they want to do?
But that said, you can get paid good enough for most desires and inclinations you have.
But taking a step back here, what I have seen with kids that age is either they already have a passion or you need to shove them very hard towards different directions and see what they like. They're usually lacking in exposure. Maybe they'll like coding and computer stuff but they have no exposure. At that age I was barely fostering a coding hobby but haven't really gotten into infosec myself. Down the road I tried different things and I was very surprised at what I liked and did not like. I apparently don't have a fear of heights (scary but I can manage) and I hate long-haul trucking.
But my standing advice is to get a degree in something practical no matter what.
If they lean to technical stuff have them pursue EE, social justice? Law or languages and literature, like to work with hands? Mechanical engineering, medicine? RN
If you are an EE grad for example it is not hard to get into coding, IT or security. Or manufacturing and designing hardware, and anything with electrons. Plan to get two degrees, one before you're 23 and another before 30 after you figured out what you really like.
I took 5 years and did a co-op job experience with my degree. I was able to socialize a little, but I’m not going to lie—-the program demands a lot of study time. So there isn’t much time for partying on weeknights.
With an engineering degree, you can go and do so many different things for work. I can’t imagine the skills you learn ever getting stale. And it’s great for future entrepreneurs.
You'll also likely have more interesting hobbies.
EE gives a high level knowledge about how the modern world works instead of assuming it's all magic.
Imagine wanting to be a professional videogame... anything in 2000? Or thinking there is a way to make money on, gasp, Fantasy Football? etc. etc.
I firmly believe if there is a subject that interests you deeply and you know there are other people also deeply interested in it, there is money to be made there not to mention a purposeful, impactful life to be enjoyed around it.
There is a fine line between landing on something that allows you to capitalize on your passion (e.g. VR in 2010) and doing something truly obscure (e.g. collecting memorabilia or something) that nobody except for a handful other people would truly care about.
If you're 16 and see something that resonates with you, that's also something a sizable amount of your friend care about, but nobody in the higher age bracket understands, chances are you are privy to a secret map to a generational goldmine.
Or you can just bury yourself alive in finance sector.
When I was getting into programming, everyone was warning me that the jobs would all be outsourced soon. That didn't happen, or not in any kind of apocalyptic way.
I'm not certain what you're concerned about, so I'll address a couple of things.
The job market is in a rough place. This happens. It's a pendulum that never stops swinging. Make yourself useful somewhere and hope for the best. If you're paid well and smart with money, you can weather the storms.
AI is making crazy, disturbing advancements right now. However, it is not even close to being able to fully replace a human in a programming or similarly technical job (I'm not an AI researcher, but that's my observation). It's a good time to get familiar with these tools, because it seems very likely that we'll all be using them in some capacity, rather than working for them. This is not hugely different from the computer revolution we already went through.
So yes, get an education. For your own enjoyment/self-fulfillment if nothing else.
Me, I'm 50 and have been a generalist all my life. People have told me all my life to specialize but I didn’t ever listen.
It's fun, and I never get bored with it. And I've been in the game long enough that I could probably be considered a "specialist" in many different areas. I generally have a better cross-system understanding of things than most.
"In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? I propose instead that you don't commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now, and choose those that will give you the most promising range of options afterward."