Having a STEM career I can say that even within my particular degree there is a HUGE variety of job opportunities (and that is just within my specific branch). I've worked with people with a wide variety of degrees (math, various science and various engineering specialties) and I have classmates of my particular specialty that went into a wide variety of fields. In the end I think the comments about keeping doors open (while avoiding closing any if possible) is very appropriate. Learning about various options is interesting (and will eventually be useful) but knowing the general direction can be enough as long as you are going in the right general direction. Slight course corrections are usually workable unless you want to completely switch to something in the Arts.
I will also say that I started engineering thinking I was going to do X. In second year I was going to do Y and then about a week before we had to specialize switched to Z. I've worked in the field for almost 20 years and my exact job has changed many times over that time. In the end something that changes constantly has been the perfect match for me. DH totally stumbled into his STEM career as well. In the end both of us couldn't be happier.
I'll be shocked if DS8 chooses a non-STEM career (he's very math/science focused and has been since birth it seems). We talk about a variety of fields to try to show him a glimpse of what is out there. Our DD5 seems more even so we really have no idea. For us that might be more of a challenge since we don't have the same network for learning about the non-STEM options. At least we have time.
