With that worldview, you should pursue banking.
Very Droll.
(Don't get me wrong... for me, "very droll" is a complement.)
Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
21–30 of 151 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#22Yes. 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 unt…
Can you adopt me?
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#23This 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 obsolet…
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.
Starting a successful business is not easy.
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#24Depends 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.
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#25Green energy - wind, solar, hydro, hydrogen etc has a lot of life left in it- there will be work installing wind farms and maintaining them.
+1. There are certainly worse careers out there and working in green energy should help prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#26Yes. 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 unt…
You sound like a great parent!
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#27> 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 t…
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.
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#28get an electrical engineering degree.
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#29Knowledge 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.
Re: Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
#30get an electrical engineering degree.
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