Ask Lemmy

I know my parents didn't think the world was stable when the Korean war and then Vietnam were going on plus Cold War, acid rain, ozone depletion and women had very few rights. Blacks couldn't vote in the USA so that caused spillover problems in Canada. When I was your age it was a recession, gas had been horrendously expensive, interest rates were high teens or 20s, recent university grads were going on to second degrees because there was no work to be had - although post secondary debt wasn't as high as now because you literally couldn't borrow that much money unless your parents were rich and could afford to pay it.
What I'm saying is that very rarely does anyone in your age group feel like the world is going their way. Figure what you able to do, a combination of your talents and your likes, and figure out the cheapest way to learn how to do it if it means post secondary education or trades or your own time. Most people cannot find something they LOVE to do that will also pay the bills. Or even if you do love it, making it pay the bills is a good way to eventually hate it. In regards to bills, what life do you, not your parents/friends, want to live? Your needs might be less or more than anothers. One person can have a great life on $50K and another "needs" $200K. Where do you need to live? Many people get stuck on staying where they grew up but if you look to previous generations, many had to move to get to where their job and their life aligned. There are probably many, many jobs that you have never heard of and therefore haven't considered. Career counselling can help.

1. Be quick to adapt and learn. Whatever field you enter is going to look completely different in 30 years (if it even remains), so if you can adapt quickly and learn whatever skills are newly relevant, you'll be in a decent place. In most employers there's a large barrier to hiring someone new, so if your field is becoming irrelevant / automated / transformed, but you're able to start doing some of the new work that your employer needs doing, then your role will grow to encompass that work and you'll remain relevant and valuable to your employer. By adapting and picking these tasks up, you essentially can rotate out of irrelevant skills into relevant ones while keeping your job and seniority.
2. I'm not sure how AI affects this, but going with the "adapt and learn" of the previous point, focus more on having a lot of general skills rather than getting really investing in a few specific ones. Most jobs aren't going to be pure <field>. In my career so far (I'm about a decade older than you for what it's worth), I've differentiated myself from other statisticians & data scientists by also being strong at software development. My classmates from where I did my master's are better statisticians than me, but they're limited in what they can do because while they can develop a great model, they struggle to get it running well in a production environment. That limits their employability. I, on the other hand, had no problem with that and was able to have great success at my previous employer. I was then able to leverage that particular experience / skill combination to get my current job, where my employer was explicitly seeking only people with this combination of skills (and struggles quite a bit to find them!)
   • I would suggest focusing on developing skills that are complementary to whatever field you enter.
3. It's hard to say what AI will look several years from now given how fast it's changing, but so far I've noticed that its outputs can be either okay or very awful, and only someone who understands the field of that output can tell which of those outcomes it is. That's why experienced programmers who use AI for coding are able to get some value (they filter out the awful output), while people who don't understand coding ship slop. Ditto for other fields. Going with the "be okay at lots of skills" of my previous point, I suspect that this would help you get more out of AI than most people as you could more effectively filter out bad AI output in a variety of areas, which could give you a leg up.

Tl;DR always be learning new skills; focus on quantity over quality.

If you find the right workplace all of those "bad industry" stuff may just pass around you without affecting you or your company.

Not sure this is comforting, but I e always gotten by by going where the demand is. I didn't know anything about the industry my first job was in, but the company was hiring like crazy so I applied. Stayed there for a few years, applied to whatever I could find to get out of there and sit out my non-compete, then kept going from job to job in that industry because there was demand.

A huge amount of it was luck. But it helped that I didn't try to pick some job or industry then hope I could find work, but rather I looked where there was work and just went there.

Is staking your sense of stability on your career the wrong way to think about this?

Of fuck yeah that's the worst way. Do what you have to do to get paid, but then find as much meaning as you can elsewhere.

We don't.

Look to labor statistics to see general trends, but also know there are outliers for every stat. Old intuitions say work closer to where the money comes (issuance) from for stability; banks, governments, financial sector, etc. Next best is selling to people/organizations who have money when others don't. If you're in a country without reasonable, universal healthcare working for the healthcare industry can afford cheaper coverage or better adherence to equality requirements if you or a dependent are prone to frequent illness. Use whatever talents and interests you can, but most people keep their passions for hobbies and choose a career based on capabilities, opportunity, and what kinds of stress they can manage.

Go into anything that has to do with the renewable energy sector, that's where jobs are going to be for decades to come

If it makes you feel better, in Sweden, the average age of students is 25. Why? A lot of them do what they want and figure things out first before deciding. A lot travel, work, or save money before going to college. It's the norm for them.

Meanwhile for the rest of the world, we're pressured to figure things out as soon as we leave high school. Looking back, it's mainly because we are pressured by our parents to go to college. It became a status symbol and bragging rights for them if their kids went to college.

You probably need a little help, a little kindness. Or just bs with bs CV's your way into some AI company.

EDIT: I have been looking into those digital sticker arts. There are places where you can draw and sell printables for some dollars.

You don't. We live in a fucked up society and nothing about this situation will changed until society changes at a fundamental level.

We're fucked mate.

Stuff like plumbing and electrician work seems to be pretty stable.

A lot of negativity online and in this thread but imo that doesn't really represent the world. There's more career paths and options today then there ever was. If you have no responsibilities (family etc) then you should allow yourself to explore and time to build something.

Don't be afraid of weird or "low skill" - everything builds skills and connects to more opportunities but most importantly now more than ever it's important to be quitter - so you can actually leave at diminishing returns point and take advantage of new opportunities.

You don't. You get a new job every two years.

Despite what the Boomers have told you, "stability" is a thing of the past. Your best opportunity for growth and regular raises is to constantly switch jobs until you've contributed enough to your 401K to retire. And if you don't have a 401K, get one ASAP. Don't wait until your late 30s like I did or you'll be working until you drop dead. Take advantage of that employer match ASAP. It's basically free money on the table. (And if your employer doesn't offer a 401K with a match, well that's yet another reason to switch jobs.)

Also, I know this won't make you feel better, but you really do need to make sure that you're both happy with your choice of major, and able to make money from it. Otherwise you will struggle even more than the rest of us. I fucked around and dropped out because I didn't know what I wanted for a career, and I'm still paying for it. I will never know what it feels like to own a new car or anything nice. (FWIW I'd likely be in the same situation even if I did graduate, because I unfortunately picked STEM as my major and anyone who has gone down that path can tell you how useless of a degree it is.)

It fucking sucks that life is this way, but that's the reality we live in. When I was your age it took me about a decade to come to terms with the fact that the American dream only existed for two generations in America (Boomers and Gen X); everybody else gets to suffer. You'll eventually come to terms with it as well. Or you'll get mad enough at the billionaires that killed the American Dream and start a revolution.

I’m older but have the same sense you have. I think your best bet is to choose a career to pursue based on the kind of contribution you’d like to make to the world.

Right now, AI is mostly changing the way some jobs are done. Other new tech will probably contribute to more of those kinds of changes. If you choose a career primarily based a skillset you like using, I think there’s a good chance you’ll end up very disappointed later when the way the jobs are done changes. But if you choose based on impact and then develop a range of skills (especially people skills!), you’re more likely to end up OK.

You mentioned that programming and urban development interested you. Urban development seems more directly about making a certain kind of impact, so in your shoes, I’d go that direction. That said, I don’t know why you’re interested in programming, and maybe there’s an impact you want to make in that field too.

I made the mistake of choosing a career based on a skillset. New technology has reduced jobs in my field, but the much larger problem is that I hate the way the jobs are done now. I could probably stay motivated and do the extra shit needed to survive in that career in the longer term if I still felt like it made a positive impact on society, but the field itself doesn’t make the world better. So I made a shift into a new industry, although I’m not expecting stability from this one either, and it’s not one that would make sense for you based on your post.

Hi I'm an American doctor here. I'm going to parrot something my father told me growing up. (I come from a family of doctors). "They will always need doctors".

I resisted it because I took it for granted but he was right. Being a doctor is among the most stable lifestyles you can find today. I live like I think everyone should be able to live. I can tell my job when I'm not available. People take my opinion seriously(even in non medical matters).

The road to being a doctor is hard as balls and will take a minimum of 7 years (often more) before you can do anything with it but you get to help people, you get to think critically every day, and the life is stable. Tbh I can't imagine myself doing anything else now. (If you had asked me during training how I felt, I would have told you this was the biggest mistake of my life).

The road to the end is very very long and it is very very stressful. I felt like I was going to die during it several times.

explore your degree, if they have job prospects, change if its low prospects, if it requires a GRAD degree to be able to advance in the field(reconsider your plans)

Join the union building trades my dude. Wake up early, make six figures, and get paid to be trained. We dont go into debt for education. We go into debt buying boats and shit.

go find a really boring unglamorous job.

it will be stable.

the problem is people don'tw ant stable jobs that are boring. they want glamorous jobs with high salaries and from big name companies... and wonder why they can't get those, but they won't work for a small business because they 'don't pay enough'.

You can’t. Neither can any middle-aged person, nor old person.