[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pu...
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Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career
wise?
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?
Author : morph123
Score : 14 points
Date : 2023-04-18 20:25 UTC (2 hours ago)
| badrabbit wrote:
| 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.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| 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.
| gaze wrote:
| 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.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Its a great time to start playing with generative AI, locally if
| you can.
|
| I 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.
| kraussvonespy wrote:
| 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.
| atmosx wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Wish you success in your life.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| 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.
| dudeDDRrulez wrote:
| 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.
| vlunkr wrote:
| 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.
| wahern wrote:
| 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.)
| pg938hkd wrote:
| [dead]
| carlosjobim wrote:
| 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.
| louison11 wrote:
| Do you.
| fluffyspork wrote:
| get an electrical engineering degree.
| [deleted]
| jschveibinz wrote:
| 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.
| captainbland wrote:
| 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.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| 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.
| coverclock wrote:
| I wrote a blog article on this very topic several years ago:
| https://coverclock.blogspot.com/2012/12/passion-practice-pro...
| ed_mercer wrote:
| 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!
| vlunkr wrote:
| I think you need to cheer up first :)
|
| 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.
| jaidan wrote:
| Either a horticulturalist/permaculturist or an industrial
| electrician.
|
| Both are and will be required skills for the foreseeable future
| (next 200 years or so).
|
| Knowing how to grow food and maintain a healthy environment is
| becoming a lost skill. "Grounding" has science now saying it's a
| good thing for your blood, heart and brain (don't have link on
| hand but when connected to ground scientists have found blood
| physically changes and can be seen in microscope).
|
| Electricians are usually a licensed trade. This makes it more
| protected but also makes you more useful.
|
| You can branch into engineering later if you wish, and you
| usually make for a better engineer cause you know a 630mm^2 cable
| doesn't fit in a 20mm gland.
|
| Substation automation based on IEC61850 is everywhere and more
| common. It consists of servers, gateways, IEDs (which also need
| programming), Ethernet, VLANS, switches etc. so you get a
| technology knowledge base you can relate to other areas of yours,
| or your friends and families life.
|
| You can also learn to program SCL files using python or other
| such tools. Get bored of big power? Switch over to instrument and
| controls.
|
| There will always be a need for plants, food and power. Why not
| set yourself up for success those ways?
|
| (Oh! And you get paid to train when you're an apprentice and you
| don't end up with student debt or university fees)
| rmk wrote:
| I would use https://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm and
| https://www.bls.gov/ooh/highest-paying.htm as a starting point,
| and see if the kid is willing to pursue training to prepare
| him/her for that occupation.
|
| 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.
| floxy wrote:
| > https://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm
|
| #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
| jonahbenton wrote:
| 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.)
|
| ==
|
| 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.
| biohax2015 wrote:
| You sound like a great parent!
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Can you adopt me?
| bbertelsen wrote:
| 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.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| With that worldview, you should pursue banking.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| Very Droll.
|
| (Don't get me wrong... for me, "very droll" is a complement.)
| zwieback wrote:
| 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.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| 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.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| 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?
| runjake wrote:
| 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. 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.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| 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.
| ignite wrote:
| Skilled trades pay well, and are harder to automate than jobs
| that can be done remotely.
|
| Plumbing for example, requires both knowledge, and hands on work.
| Plumbers won't be replaced until both AI and Robotics advance
| cosiderably.
| gaze wrote:
| 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.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| Green energy - wind, solar, hydro, hydrogen etc has a lot of life
| left in it- there will be work installing wind farms and
| maintaining them.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| +1. There are certainly worse careers out there and working in
| green energy should help prevent the worst outcomes of climate
| change.
| orlandohill wrote:
| 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."_
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