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

And what you love and are good at may not be as important in the long run as what your personality/temperament is compatible with. Many jobs show a face that is less than 5% of the actual work. A creative person may find they spend more time filling out paperwork and sitting in meetings than designing things. Or a "big-thinking" oriented science major may spend all their day reading numbers off a reactor with nothing to do if the device never fails.

I might also suggest robotics which is a VERY quickly growing industry and shows every sign of continuing to do so for at least a couple of decades.

I'd suggest to all members here not to count out the construction trades. There are REALLY good jobs in the construction industry that are extremely challenging and pay quite handsomely and there are immediate job openings all over for high end positions.

Good point. It is not unusual for recent grads from our local voc-tech high school to be pulling down $60-90/hr entry-level jobs, with union protections, which makes it possible to get through college without any loans, should you choose to do so.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. One of my main thoughts when I wrote the OP is the difference between a specialist and a generalist, when it comes to natural abilities. The specialist is more vulnerable. They may succeed in their narrow area of high ability, but if not, they can be in worse shape than the generalist who naturally has a wider range of options.

The U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook may be of interest: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/

That is not always the case. If you are too much of a generalist, you may end up not really being strong in one area - leaving you vulnerable too. My particular group (in high tech) is most or less a group that has a lot of folks that would been seen as "generalist" due to the broad range of environments/tools we support, but most of us still have certain areas where we have strong expertise and then just general knowledge for the basics in the other areas my team supports (enough to handle most of the daily requests that comes in when needed). I have noticed that those of us on my team with very strong skills in our areas are usually most sought after by users and their managers (even if some areas, we have no clue) and those who only know the bare basics of all tools but no real depth in anything are just as actively avoided. And our environment is changing all the time (some of us have better capacity to adjust and learn on the spot as our work environment changes than others).

From what I have seen, in some areas, generalists are first to be laid off if they are not perceived as being strong in any area (meaning they are seen as easy to replace and get someone else trained if the company grows again).

Regardless of whether you are seen as more of a generalist or specialist, due to the rapid changes in many fields, everyone has to be able to adapt to and adopt new technologies and changes. If you are too rigid and always resist change in your field, you most likely will be left behind. I believe this is true in most fields.

Really? Huh. People are so different! It would never occur to me to have this conversation.

I definitely talk about careers with my kids, but at this point it mostly takes the form of talking about what jobs are out there. If we know or meet or encounter someone with an especially interesting job or one that seems relevant to my kids' interests or skills, I try to bring that up, especially. I would like to have my kids meet and shadow more of these adults as they get older.

It's more about making sure they know what's out there and have given it more than cursory thought than trying to figure out exactly what will suit them, IMO. My own professional skills and inclinations are evolving even now.

Years ago Drucker estimated that the typical knowledge worker turns over what they know every 5 years or so (Maybe not 100% - but close). So being adaptable like notnafnaf mentioned seems key.

Speaking of careers, ran across a video of Cedric Villani (Fields Medal awardee) at TedX talking about being a mathematician. My son and I really enjoyed watching it last night.

I suppose the question is, what should we be doing now or in the near future?

ETA:
Kind of. The specific scenario I fear, is one many of us have seen namely a person that sees themselves as being on a clear trajectory to academia, but one way or another they don't make it. They end up underemployed in various ways, or outright unemployed. They may struggle finding alternatives, and may realize in hindsight they wish they could rewind the clock and do things differently.

It's also debabtable whether academia is that great a career anyway.