High-earning careers for risk averse people?

[Anonymous]

Privacy compliance, finance, accounting

[Anonymous]

If pharmacy is still a good profession, I'd say this.
Overall, I think he would be comforted by having a state license, being licensed - as something. Accounting, of course, also satisfies this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does your son consider high quality income? DH and I are both gs 15 lawyers, making $200,000 a year including bonus and have a pretty decent pension and lifetime healthcare if we retire from the government. Both DH and I worked at firms for a few years where we paid off our loans, but now many junior attorneys in our office qualify for public service loan forgiveness so no debt.

What percentage of lawyers get govt jobs? I bet it is a very small percentage and those jobs are very hard to get. Just saying if he doesn't like risk this isn't a good plan esp given the cost of law school these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Accounting

This. I didn’t go into it in college because it seemed like a grind but all of my college classmates who did have been fully employed throughout their careers, sometimes with competing offers lined up. The few who have made partner in big firms are near or over a million a year in salary. Excellent career for the risk averse, but smart and hard working student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone saying data science and software engineering needs to look at the current market, demand is dipping partially due to oversupply. You will always here of the top students in these fields finding success, but if you are risk adverse you need to see where average and below average students (and early career workers) are getting jobs.

I would say government is really the only place to avoid risk. But you need to make sure you are okay with the pay or getting paid after your pension starts laying out in the private sector.

I should also mention that I am currently in a PT Data Science Masters. And the more technical professors are all saying that so much of the future of these jobs depends on what happens with chat gpt/LLMs and whether it can continue to scale. Chat GPT can already do all the intro to intermediate coding assignments we have. And we are actually encouraged to use it for the free form projects we get as long as we can explain the coding/data model output.

[Anonymous]

Law, with the caveat that he attends a T14 law school. This is pretty easy to do if you have a good GPA (3.9+, so he should pick a major where this is feasible) and do well on the LSAT. Which is not that hard if you study and retake it if you don’t get a 170.

I went to Penn and pretty much everyone in the class who was interested got a biglaw job, even people who were bozos or didn’t get good grades. Biglaw isn’t necessarily a long-term plan but if you put in a few years you’ll be able to exit to an in house job or the government (harder, but this is a really great option). If you’re at a school like Penn or better, there’s really not much work to be done in terms of achieving a financially stable career after you get in. The path is pretty linear.

[Anonymous]

Cybersecurity will be around for the next 30 years and it pay’s extremely well. My DS, a recent grad, is working for a financial institution in cybersecurity division and he gets paid 200K with 100K signing bonus.

Cybersecurity is among many disciplines within Computer Science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If he’s genuinely interested in medicine join he military and have them pay for med school. “Retire” after 20 years with a pension and go into private practice.

This. Focus on surgery once in. And one thing military medicine lis better at than probably anyone else in the world is ortho and spine surgery. Hone your practice while still in the service and then make the biggest bank in private practice fixing lower backs, ankles and hips.
— OR @ a military hospital

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cybersecurity will be around for the next 30 years and it pay’s extremely well. My DS, a recent grad, is working for a financial institution in cybersecurity division and he gets paid 200K with 100K signing bonus.

Cybersecurity is among many disciplines within Computer Science.

Your ds majored in cs? Which school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone saying data science and software engineering needs to look at the current market, demand is dipping partially due to oversupply. You will always here of the top students in these fields finding success, but if you are risk adverse you need to see where average and below average students (and early career workers) are getting jobs.

I would say government is really the only place to avoid risk. But you need to make sure you are okay with the pay or getting paid after your pension starts laying out in the private sector.

I should also mention that I am currently in a PT Data Science Masters. And the more technical professors are all saying that so much of the future of these jobs depends on what happens with chat gpt/LLMs and whether it can continue to scale. Chat GPT can already do all the intro to intermediate coding assignments we have. And we are actually encouraged to use it for the free form projects we get as long as we can explain the coding/data model output.

I hope the NYT lawsuit slows the rollout of AI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cybersecurity will be around for the next 30 years and it pay’s extremely well. My DS, a recent grad, is working for a financial institution in cybersecurity division and he gets paid 200K with 100K signing bonus.

Cybersecurity is among many disciplines within Computer Science.

Your ds majored in cs? Which school?

Yes, CS major from JMU. He got accepted to CMU but went to JMU because of a full scholarship @JMU.

[Anonymous]

He should become a quant.

[Anonymous]

Actuary

[Anonymous]

Can we please stop with the accounting recommendation? The career has been good to me, but between AI and outsourcing to third world countries, I wouldn't touch it. Plus, accounting and HR are the first department to lose their jobs after a merger. But I would suggest being an actuary if someone has the chops for the quant piece.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If he’s genuinely interested in medicine join he military and have them pay for med school. “Retire” after 20 years with a pension and go into private practice.

I live in a military city and we have a lot of great doctors from military who retire and have gone into private practice here.