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Hah! When I took the first steps on my career path I wasn’t good at anything, had no idea what I really liked because I hadn’t had the opportunity to try most s
by jauco 4y ago
Hah! When I took the first steps on my career path I wasn’t good at anything, had no idea what I really liked because I hadn’t had the opportunity to try most stuff and the top paying jobs of today didn’t even exist.
I know you are a smart person, but this advice will hold young people back.
Try stuff. Don’t sweat it. You’ll fail and you’ll succeed and you won’t know which is which until years later when you tell a story about your life and force it into a narrative.
- krageon 4y agoEvery child knows what things they like and are good at. It might not map exactly to a career path but it's not like career skills live in some sort of magical vacuum that you can never see until you try them.
- setr 4y agoLiking dinosaurs and Jurassic park is not the same as liking archeology, especially as a job. Most children have no idea what they’d be getting into, and if they like something, it probably has little to nothing to do with the actual work/job/goals.
- another2another 4y agoThis is why the 'bring your child to work' days can be so great, they can get a sense of what a real workplace is like, other than some abstract place you go to when you finish education.
- simiones 4y agoHow many children are aware that they would enjoy actuarial finance? How many are aware that they would be good at arguing patent law?
- horns4lyfe 4y agoDo they enjoy math? Are they good at persuading others to side with them in arguments? Those aren’t non-transferable skills.
- simiones 4y agoSo if they enjoy math, they are as likely to enjoy actuarial finance as they are to like research into category theory or machine learning? If they are good at persuading others to side with them in arguments, they are as likely to enjoy patent law, criminal law, marketing, or politics? There are some common skills, but all of these professions are extraordinarily different and require completely different aspects of those skills, and entirely different additional skills.
- ilyt 4y agoThe problem starts when things you enjoy/do well don't fall into "pay well"
- imtringued 4y agoThey don't pay well because everyone else enjoys them too.
- WalterBright 4y agoYes, it is hard to have a career eating ice cream.
- haswell 4y agoThis is highly dependent on upbringing. I grew up with extremely religious and controlling parents. I spent most of my childhood believing I’d go to hell if I didn’t dedicate my life to the god the church worshipped. This had a huge impact on what I believed about myself at that age, and I’m still actively working against the indoctrination in my 30s through therapy. I still wonder how things might have gone if I pursued some form of research. I have evidence now to believe I might have been good at it, but haven’t convinced myself the cost to pivot makes sense at this stage of my life. My story is not unique, and church/religion are just one implementation of a form of parenting that works hard against your claim.
- FredPret 4y agoI grew up loving engineering-related activities without knowing that "engineering" was a word, or even a profession
- FredPret 4y agoThat's true - to draw a circle around what you enjoy, what you're good at, and what you get paid for, you have to actually try it for a while first
- WalterBright 4y agoThere are a lot of people who select a major only to discover upon graduation that the pay for it is minimum wage. Everybody has activities that they enjoy.
- FredPret 4y agoThat information is a simple Google search away though. There are also lots of opportunities to pivot besides the default job in your field. Eg, gardening doesn’t sound promising, but call it “landscaping”, run it as a business, and you can earn more than a doctor.