Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?

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.

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.

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 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.

Paul Graham has some nice advice on this in his essay, What You'll Wish You'd Known. http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

"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."