Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion If academia doesn't work out (career planning).

Some of us have kids that seem naturally headed towards academic careers, and it might be hard to see what else they could do. Let's brainstorm about alternatives, because we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket.

There are two parts to this.
1. What are those other careers?
2. How do we prepare to be versatile for this wider range?
(The answers depend on the kid of course.)

I'll compare and contrast DS8 (monolithically mathy) and DD5 (more uniformly skilled and versatile) to make the point.

DD5 will probably be fine. With no teacher other than herself so far, she's taught herself a bit of arithmetic, and to read (at 3) and writes a little bit. She is an avid reader. She is also extremely social, and when we go to the park, she'll find a playmate faster than you can blink. We haven't tested yet, but even if she's "only" 98th or 99th %ile across the board in these academic skills, she'll be fine and will have plenty of options with those academic skills and social skills.

However DS8 was born with all his eggs in one basket. He is totally mathy, easily above 99.9th %ile. Though an early self taught reader (at 2), he is not an avid reader. He finds it grueling to read something lengthy, and writing (composing text) is especially burdensome. So the reading and writing are relative weaknesses; he's still well above average, but they require effort. Social skills, however is an absolute weakness. He can be quite socially awkward and inept, though he's okay in a tolerant environment.

DS8 could become a mathematician, but we'd better have a plan B. He might not get a job, or he might want to do something else, and in any case we need more options.

So for DS8 (or anyone extremely mathy, not so read-y, not so writey, and somewhat socially challenged)
1. What are the most suitable careers?
2. How do we prepare him to have these options?

Those of you with kids who seem naturally headed towards academic careers, what are your thoughts on preparing for alternatives? I know it might seem young for career planning, but for DS8 (not DD5) I feel like I need to think this through now.

I've known other kids who did finish a 4 yr degree in their teens or earlier, and all of those were options. Take another bachelor's, grad school, med/law school, work, travel, spend a year or two focused on art or music, volunteer in a service field of interest. Do more than one of the above, serially or concurrently. Change your mind. Change your mind again.

They will find their way. When you have a couple of years to experiment with before you are really ready to take on full adult responsibilities, you have the freedom to invest a little time in additional interests, and the things people wish they could have done.

There are many career options for mathy kids besides academia. Off the top of my head: engineering, biotech, economics, intelligence/national security, any area that involves analyzing big data.

Oh, and the persons of my acquaintance who started uni earliest began college coursework at age nine. Youngest out there may be even younger. So 11 is practically ancient! . Seriously, there is also nothing that says college has to be done in four years either. Take five or six or more years and explore multiple topics. Double or triple major, if you can't decide. (Of course, this assumes that this is financially feasible.). A PG teen is still a kid. Some of them may know what their life's work is already, but many are just as at sea as the next kid, and will need the time to figure themselves out.

DS8 is in that same arc with his own long term plan to be a math professor. If it isn't academia for him, I would guess it would be because he gets tired of schooling. If that is the case, then a strong match for those skills is IT which is a field with many entry points that don't require academic credentials.

So, I encourage him to be comfortable with programming and real world problem solving, and will continue to trust and encourage his explorations. He's also aware of accounting and finance as mathy careers.

FWIW we're not thinking of early college for DS8 (maybe 1 year early). We want him to get into the best place he can, and the competition will be tough at the regular age, let alone younger.

Top 0.1% of kids a certain age, say 8, in the USA means top 4000 kids. There's a lot of competition for college places, and later, jobs.

You could look at the Careers section of the Mathematical Association of America site http://www.maa.org/careers , which mentions a book which can be previewed:

http://www.maa.org/publications/books/101-careers-in-mathematics
101 Careers in Mathematics - Third Edition (2014)
by Andrew Sterrett

A few other ideas--cryptography, financial engineering, risk management, robotics, operations management.

There are many fields of applied statistics.

We're talking about elementary students?

The conversation in our house is about keeping options open - the mantra in our house is that the world is wide open to them. To keep it wide open, they need to work on a variety of academic and social/personal skills, even if they don't appear to be relevant to their area of talent now.

I've actually refused to engage with teachers and administrators on what careers my kids are suited to, and the language arts teacher got a dressing down from me when she told me that DD was not likely to be a novelist or journalist or anything because DD says she hates writing. My 11 year old is a totally different kid than she was 2 years ago (when we put her on an IEP for writing) and a totally different kid than 2 years before that (skipped a year of math after extensive testing). How are we to predict this kid as an adult if we can't even see 2 years out?

But shouldn't they be his career ideas?

Either way, I agree that 8 is very young for career planning. Like GeoFizz, we tell our kids they have options. Two of them talk about what they want to do, and we encourage them. We don't plan for them. Plus, at a very young age, too much information about careers or working when you're a grownup can be offputting for some kids. My 14-year-old tenth-grader has only started thinking vaguely about these ideas in the past year or so. He'll start getting more serious this coming academic year as a junior, and that's fine with us.