My DS15 doesn't have a clue what he wants to do yet, although I assume it will likely be in the STEM area, math/computer science/engineering/science realm. Kids who have strong mathematical abilities can be successful in any of these fields and don't necessary need to go into academia. Many of the people I know including myself went into fields in computer science. And there still is a huge demand in that particular field. At this stage one thing we are doing with his lack of motivation is having him look at possible career choices to hopefully motivate him to do better in H.S. so that he can go to university.
Most of my peers when I was in H.S. who were gifted math students, went into computer programing or other computer science related fields. We joke around our house that if my husband hadn't gone into academia we could have been millionaires, because he did get an offer to work in the early days at a start-up that shall remain nameless.
