What's the "best" major/career path?

[Anonymous]

My daughter is early in her high school career but we recently had a discussion around majors/career paths and I am looking for input. What are some of the best major/career paths that balance income with quality of life?

Daughter wants to obviously make good money but doesn't want to do 8-10 years of schooling. She's good at math so we've talked about CS, finance, engineering, accounting (which of course are super competitive) but what career paths are traditionally high-earning but still have a "good" quality of life component to it. I know it's subjective but we define good income as mid $100s within 5-7 years or so of graduation and quality of life as work/life balance, job security, satisfaction, low stress, etc. What career paths have you talked to your kids about that balance the two?

[Anonymous]

Data Science
Finance
(Business) Analytics
Engineering (Chemical, Aerospace, Elect., Computer, etc.)
CS and related.

Finance/Business related field is little more school sensitive

[Anonymous]

I am 50 years old (for the context). I was always good at math, so 30+ years ago when I was making my choices, everyone urged me to go into CS.

One very wise woman who was in CS and was in her 40s at the time steered me a different way. She told me that the key to a good life work-wise is to pick a job with relatively high barriers to entry and, especially for a woman, where your age adds to your value. Basically something where you can't mint a bunch of qualified people in a couple of years, and where what you knew 10 years ago is beneficial to your work. CS is failing spectacularly on both counts.

I became an actuary. This will not work for your daughter since she doesn't want additional study, but I seriously urge her to consider what my mentor said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am 50 years old (for the context). I was always good at math, so 30+ years ago when I was making my choices, everyone urged me to go into CS.

One very wise woman who was in CS and was in her 40s at the time steered me a different way. She told me that the key to a good life work-wise is to pick a job with relatively high barriers to entry and, especially for a woman, where your age adds to your value. Basically something where you can't mint a bunch of qualified people in a couple of years, and where what you knew 10 years ago is beneficial to your work. CS is failing spectacularly on both counts.

I became an actuary. This will not work for your daughter since she doesn't want additional study, but I seriously urge her to consider what my mentor said.

I'm 51 years old.
CS was high barrier field for woman at the time, and still is for many people.
It's hard to even get into the major these days.

I'm a database developer/engineer highly respected in the field making close to $200K
Working from home full time.

Different people have different perspectives.

[Anonymous]

If you have no idea what you want to do for a living, Economics. Can’t go wrong. An understanding of economics helps you with everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am 50 years old (for the context). I was always good at math, so 30+ years ago when I was making my choices, everyone urged me to go into CS.

One very wise woman who was in CS and was in her 40s at the time steered me a different way. She told me that the key to a good life work-wise is to pick a job with relatively high barriers to entry and, especially for a woman, where your age adds to your value. Basically something where you can't mint a bunch of qualified people in a couple of years, and where what you knew 10 years ago is beneficial to your work. CS is failing spectacularly on both counts.

I became an actuary. This will not work for your daughter since she doesn't want additional study, but I seriously urge her to consider what my mentor said.

LOL actuary is probably one of the first jobs going away with AI

[Anonymous]

With AI around the corner, a high degree of abstraction is a good bet. You can't beat the SCAMP majors (Statistics, Computer science, Applied math, Math, and Physics).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With AI around the corner, a high degree of abstraction is a good bet. You can't beat the SCAMP majors (Statistics, Computer science, Applied math, Math, and Physics).

Statistics and data science are about to drastically change. Very large data sets is where AI really shines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have no idea what you want to do for a living, Economics. Can’t go wrong. An understanding of economics helps you with everything.

My kid chose Econ + Data Science minor.

It's a great combination, but school prestige matters a bit for econ.

[Anonymous]

Dearly high school I would tell her her job right now is to keep an open mind and try lots of things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have no idea what you want to do for a living, Economics. Can’t go wrong. An understanding of economics helps you with everything.

My kid chose Econ + Data Science minor.

It's a great combination, but school prestige matters a bit for econ.

I have to agree that school prestige matters. Econ from Chicago or Harvard or MIT is going to be viewed very differently than random econ degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With AI around the corner, a high degree of abstraction is a good bet. You can't beat the SCAMP majors (Statistics, Computer science, Applied math, Math, and Physics).

Statistics and data science are about to drastically change. Very large data sets is where AI really shines.

+1, I think the more AI-resistant skill is to be able to explain and contextualize data. Thus I'd encourage a double major in something math-oriented, and an English/Communications degree (gasp!) because there will always be jobs for people who can write/communicate clearly about what all this data we have collected and analyzed actually means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With AI around the corner, a high degree of abstraction is a good bet. You can't beat the SCAMP majors (Statistics, Computer science, Applied math, Math, and Physics).

Statistics and data science are about to drastically change. Very large data sets is where AI really shines.

I specifically did not recommend data science. That's a soft major trooper for the plucking.

[Anonymous]

Art history

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With AI around the corner, a high degree of abstraction is a good bet. You can't beat the SCAMP majors (Statistics, Computer science, Applied math, Math, and Physics).

Statistics and data science are about to drastically change. Very large data sets is where AI really shines.

I specifically did not recommend data science. That's a soft major trooper for the plucking.

Still much harder than english history communications etc.