
Students being prepared for jobs that no longer exist – how that could change - pmcpinto
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/students-are-being-prepared-jobs-no-longer-exist-here-s-n865096
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krupan
Funny, I was talking to my parents recently about how they were told basically
the same thing when I was in high school (let's just say over 20 years ago).
"Your kids will have jobs that haven't even been invented yet!"

That turned out to be somewhat true, especially if you get really specific. I
have worked on drone and SSD hardware, two things that didn't exist when I was
in high school. In general though, that stuff is not that crazy and new, core
math, electrical engineering, and software skills are still the same.

I suppose jobs like "self driving car backup driver" and "Bitcoin miner" are a
little more out there :-)

~~~
henrieri
Coming from a long line of miner families from my father's side (my hundreds
of times great great parents used to be dwarven miners some time before the
defeat of the Sauron) I must say the concept of Bitcoin and gold mining are
not that different. It is just the tools which have changed.

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mirimir
> Critics say high schools aren’t doing enough to prepare young people for
> life after graduation, in-demand jobs and a pathway to the middle class.

Maybe there is no "pathway to the middle class". Because the middle class is
disappearing.

~~~
paulddraper
Yet the lower class (for however nebluous a definition "classes" are) is
shrinking or staying the same.

So...seems like a great trend to me. Right?

~~~
monetus
Curious, by which metrics?

~~~
paulddraper
Most sources I believe. Pew Research:
[http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-
middl...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-
is-losing-ground/)

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araes
Much of the world still does not have basic physical world needs being met
(air, sustenance, clothing/shelter, sleep). Heck, a lot of America still
doesn't have those needs met. Many of the jobs, and much of the money can
still be made by tackling them. And its relativistic, so you can always make
"better" versions too. Sure, automation is reducing them, but clever people
can tackle how to build a better house, grow food more economically, ect...
and employ people while they're doing it.

Safety / security needs (personal, financial, health). Tons of money and jobs
here too. Much of America is floating in this zone and needs these services or
better versions. Much of the world barely has them. The current health care
system (in America) is atrocious and vastly overpriced, smart folks like
Buffet are rightly pushing into that space.

Social needs (family, friendship, intimacy, esteem). Vast amounts of money /
jobs, and tons of room for innovation. People need real versions of these, not
virtual software things. Ways to actually meet new friends - in the physical
world. To find intimacy in natural ways. To feel like they actually have a
family instead of being increasingly isolated. (I say this as I type alone on
a computer at a coffeeshop...)

I won't even cover actualization and transcendence. I suspect such a small
percent of the world could even describe what that it means to fully realize
themselves that if you can make a job out of it, you're set.

Short version - hand wringing is silly. What do people actually need? There
are future jobs and money.

~~~
PeterisP
Needs don't create jobs, economic demand creates them - and the big difference
between a need, necessity or desire versus economic demand is the _ability_ to
afford that good or service.

If people can't afford basic physical needs, then that's going to create jobs
only if these people somehow get extra resources for that. The current job
trends won't do that, they're likely going to make it worse for those people
that can't afford basic needs - either it's going to be solved by some major
politic-economic intervention redistributing resources (UBI being one of
multiple possibilities) or it's not going to happen and those needs will stay
unmet.

~~~
JPKab
From the article: She hates school. “Elementary school: hated it,” Amber says.
“Middle school: h-a-t-e-d it. School just isn’t for me. I hate coming to
school. I hate waking up early. I hate homework.”

Amber envisions a comfortable future that includes a family, a modern-yet-
rustic house and a good job, maybe as a business owner

Hmmmm. Not sure that much can be done, or should be done, to help lazy
unmotivated people with unrealistic expectations.

~~~
annabellish
I'm not sure how you got that impression from this article. We don't learn
very much about Amber, but nothing in there seems to suggest that she's unable
or unwilling to work as hard as anybody else to achieve her dreams, merely
that school doesn't offer any options which are appealing to her. I think it's
very disingenuous to suggest that any paths which are not supported in current
schools are "lazy and unmotivated".

It's a story so common as to be a trope in media for the school dropout to end
up going on to great things once they find an avenue for their enthusiasm, and
the article hints that Amber may be finding something like that in her
culinary work.

How, then, is this meaningfully different from typically well-recieved stories
about teenagers who don't get on with school but are enthusiastic engineers or
programmers? The specific path is different, but the story is the same. Why
should one be interpreted as "potentially the next Bill Gates" and the other
as "lazy unmotivated"?

~~~
paulddraper
> I hate waking up early.

I've never seen a school start earlier than 8:15am.

~~~
annabellish
8:15am is pretty darn early for an every day start. I know that personally I
find starting work even at 9am less than ideal, and so shift those hours
forward. You can't do that with school for obvious reasons, but that doesn't
mean people who aren't morning people are lazy and unmotivated.

~~~
paulddraper
> 8:15am is pretty darn early for an every day start.

???

That's less than 4 hours before noon....

Most americans[1] are awake by 6:30am. If you sleep past 7:30am you are in the
last 1 out of 6.

[1] [http://www.edisonresearch.com/wake-me-up-
series-2/](http://www.edisonresearch.com/wake-me-up-series-2/)

~~~
annabellish
Okay? 8:15am is the start of _a school day_, not the point at which a student
wakes up. That's significantly earlier than the average work day, and nobody
suggested the average worker woke at 9am.

Are we just assuming students don't have commute times here? That isn't true
for a _lot_ of people.

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jaggederest
The truism these days is that you are either taking care of people, making
software, or being replaced by software.

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vondur
Is there really such a thing as a “future proof” job?

~~~
contingencies
I found it laughable they think lawyers are robot proof.

~~~
labster
I don't. They'll just pass a law to make robot lawyers illegal. Rent seeking
can be a powerful force against automation.

~~~
contingencies
It will play out like H&R Block in accounting. One firm will aggressively
automate most procedural, standard advisory and contract law, undercutting the
rest. They will be joined by others for the race to the bottom. The beginnings
already exist. [https://medium.com/legal-tech/legal-tech-
startups-9755b18f93...](https://medium.com/legal-tech/legal-tech-
startups-9755b18f93ac)

PS. Any legal firm without a strategy here can hire me (at lawyer rates) to
tell them how to get with the program. ;)

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8bitsrule
>Eighty-four percent of students are graduating on time.... Nationally, just
25 percent of high school seniors are able to do grade-level math and just 37
percent score proficient in reading.

The factory model of education is similar to Tesla's automated Model 3
assembly line. A pat on the head, push 'em out the door, and Prozac for the
unhappy.

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ilaksh
I personally do not think any jobs will be except from being replaced by
human-level AI. And there are many signs that this may happen within 10 years
or even less.

~~~
distances
Care to share any? I haven't yet seen indications of a general AI being
achievable in any kind of short term, and I'm somewhat sceptical of it
happening this century at all.

