I have to also disagree with there being a cyclic component in future job prospects.
Computer Science has been nearly bullet proof since day one. The only noticeable hiccup was after the 2000 crash but it was only a temporary setback.
I remember at one point, way back when, IBM Research said they had almost twice as many open positions for CS PhDs (the least desirable CS degree :() as were being produced per year. Right now Amazon is going after so many CS PhD faculty that there is a real question as to who is going to be teaching all those CS undergrads down the line that Amazon also wants. That is the sort of thing that’s being going on with only minor fluctuations for over 30 years.
STEM has been good for a long time and will be for a long time. The current downturn in demand for lawyers is very long term. Not a cycle. Etc.
I think one problem with many jobs, along with pay, are benefits and retirement.
I work for the government and I’m looking at only 9 more years until I can retire and have my pension. If I get sick and need to take 3 months off I have insurance for that. I get vacation pay.
Yes, some jobs can pay well but you need the discipline to 1. find insurance 2. have backup funds if you are down for awhile 3. fund a retirement program.
Just retired as a software engineer*. I was working in a research group, mainly on DARPA funded projects concentrating on autonomous vehicles. In the last few years I’d been learning about, and adding some AI to my control software. My boss always told the suits during I was using AI, but I thought it was a reach, since I wasn’t actually using neural nets. Prior to that, I had done some (again) minor robotics, mainly 4DOF movement on a constrained system. Even these tentative forays into the fields were enough to keep me constantly in demand. FWIW: I started in 1985 programming test equipment, and retired 4 months ago. Although there were a lot of job changes and layoffs, I literally never went a week without a job. Literally literally.
My generic advice to anyone entering this field: If available, take the job offer** that requires the highest security clearance. Product development times are getting shorter, while the investigations are taking longer and longer. This means project managers are increasingly facing a delimma – a six month project schedule, but need 12-24 months lead time to get staff security clearances. Anyone with TS/SCI following their name is the golden child – and will be hired onto almost any project if they’re remotely qualified for the work.
*Using the popular terminology. I refer to myself as a programmer – I think writing software is much closer to composing music than building bridges.
**If they offer it, they’ve decided to fund it and wait for it.
My personal suspicion is that with advanced automation, any sort of job that revolves around performing specific tasks is likely endangered. I mean, there are lots of jobs that would be easily automatable, except for the necessity of communication with people, and some degree of independent decision making. Increased machine learning and AI is going to make a lot of that kind of stuff obsolete- call centers, for example, or a lot of accounting-related paper pushing. Or even stuff like rote cooking and order-taking such as is done at fast food places.
What’s going to remain important and vital in the future are the jobs where the actual work product requires interpretation, inspiration, creativity or other things that can’t really be measured or learned by a computer. So a lot of analyst and management jobs, and artistic type jobs will stay around. And I suspect that jobs that deal with fundamentally dirty/chaotic situations may remain for a lot longer- plumbers, contractors, etc… even if parts of those jobs end up automated. I mean, there’s no reason whatsoever that a home builder building modern-day homes on a handful of floor plans couldn’t have the lumber and drywall cut by robot in a factory, and even joined/fastened in large part in the same factory, and the guys on site would just assemble the pre-built parts and then do the finishing work like painting prep, painting, etc…
This is nonsense. Most law grads are doing fine. The ones who are flailing are largely those who went to school in the late 2000s when law school applications reached unsustainable levels, or those who go to unaccredited schools. It’s actually a reasonably good time to go to law school - application numbers are way down (although they have spiked a bit in the last couple of years thanks to Trump). I work for a very large private law firm and we are having trouble hiring right now (that is partly because Florida is a “closed shop” in terms of reciprocal bar admission recognition - if you want to practice here, you have to take the Florida bar exam).
The grand old days when a law license was a ticket to the gravy train are over, but I went to a fourth-tier school right at the end of the Bad Years and I am doing great.
“Fine” is up for discussion. What I think he was trying to say is that a lot of people have a certain image of a lawyer being some flash guy driving a BMW or Corvette or something, and bringing in 300k a year or something like that.
The VAST majority of lawyers don’t make that much money. Some do for sure, but they’re not in the majority.
Plenty make good money however, but more in the $75-$150 range, which is pretty much square in the salary category for the tech industry as well. For example, an assistant District Attorney in Dallas County makes an average of about $65k a year according to LinkedIn. That’s ok money, but not good. I suspect a lot of ambulance chasers, or at least their associates aren’t making crazy money as well.
There is also the maintenance and repair of those robots and machines.
We have had some industrial robots at work whose only job was to pick up a box (with suction) and place it on a stack. The things required constant maintenance and adjustments and every little photoeye and sensor on sorting and stacking machines has to be closely watched and a bit of paper, debris, or even dust can mess the whole thing up. Then the computers that control the whole thing can also have their own issues. One little loose wire or bad circuit board can bring down a whole machine.
Sure, but for a machine that replaces 25-30 people, there may be a handful of maintenance people to maintain/troubleshoot the machine. We’ve already seen this in action with the current industrial robots in use- even though they don’t eliminate EVERY job, they reduce the numbers by quite a bit.
No. The company I work for was a very small business when I started there. They paid comparable wages with the union companies and my benefit package has been a little better.
There is nothing wrong with starting out with the unions though. The apprenticeship programs are great.
It’s possible to be an MD and practice the way you want. I recently found an MD who is in a practice of Direct Care Physicians. DCP’s don’t deal with insurance, they charge fee for service. They also take time with their patients, address their patients in a holistic manner, and enjoy what they are doing. They make less money than someone in a big corporate practice but find the trade off well worth it.
My son is currently a psychiatry resident. He went to state schools for undergrad and medical school so that he could finish with a minimal amount of debt and would have the freedom to practice any way he’d like. MD’s with a large amount of debt are often stuck working for the highest payer.
Agreed, but that’s kind of beside the point. If one has the skills to repair robots, there are jobs out there. The mechanization of society will continue, and all those machines need maintenance and repairs.