<p>Many lucrative fields are getting squeezed.</p>
<p>I was talking to a friend yesterday. He deals with architects. He says that field is losing people left and right and is not coming back for a decade. He hires computer programmers in India for $15 an hour and they are just as good as Americans. </p>
<p>The law profession is struggling. </p>
<p>Healthcare is changing.</p>
<p>The tickets to an upper-middle class life seem to be dwindling. Job security…even at the top doesn’t look so secure.</p>
<p>What are the professions that can lead to an upper-middle class life?</p>
<p>What are the hot areas that may stay hot for 15-25 years?</p>
<p>There are widely varying levels of programming moving up to software engineering. Yes, there are many kinds of programming that high-school kids can do. Software engineering usually commands professional salaries and even software engineers in India get paid considerably more than $15/hour (we have coworkers in India). Software engineering provides a relatively good income but most will not get rich or wealthy in this line of work unless you hit it big with stock options.</p>
<p>There’s still a lot of demand for software engineers in the United States. I just saw an email in my son’s account on Friday from IBM - they’re looking for outsourcing customer service people in Iowa. I thought that it was funny that companies are outsourcing to Iowa. It’s better than Bangalore. They’re also looking for people in a few facilities in MA.</p>
<p>I was gonna say. I thought programming is still a totally legit career <em>if</em> you are 97-99th percentile intellect. Has the market stopped for these higher end guys?</p>
<p>The market is still there. We’ve lost a number of engineers to other companies recently and are looking to replace them. The jobs market is actually pretty good if you’ve got the skills and knowledge.</p>
<p>The United States of America is a nation in decline. The 21st century will be an Asian/Indian century. Look to South America for what will become of the U.S… We will see a tiny upper-class and a huge lower-class which will be delineated by a small middle-class of professionals and those who work for the government, especially those who work for “law enforcement” (and whose jobs will be handed down within family). It’s a shift that has going on for years, but now the trend has been greatly accelerated. </p>
<p>The medical profession’s golden years in terms of money making for the average doctor may be indeed be changing, especially in light of educational-incurred debt.</p>
<p>But America’s need for physicians, nurses, paraprofessionals is strong, and I encourage all who are interested in to pursue your interest in a creative way (NHSC, State sponsored education), should it be your dream.</p>
<p>I can think of easier ways of making money, but the health care profession gives one much sense of accomplishment and good will at the end of a day or a shift. It remains, by and large, a proud profession, and if you choose it with an ethical spirit, you should be welcomed and satisfied.</p>
<p>Not my experience at all. I went into medical technology having been told how great it was to have a career in health care. After 5 years of working night shifts, weekends, and holidays for terrible pay and lousy working conditions under great stress, I got out. Went back to school and became an accountant. And love it.</p>
<p>As for job security, during my 5 years in the lab, I was never downsized, but my co-workers were -twice.</p>
<p>Long-time software engineer here. I agree that there’s still a lot of work for excellent pay but experience, keeping up with technology, the ability to manage time, and people skills are important.</p>
<p>I think that this applies to nearly every profession. Some kid who knows how to write code isn’t going to magically become a millionaire overnight, but someone who works at it and has some right-brain ability will do fine.</p>
<p>OP: Excellent questions for which I have no answers. But I’ll share the advice I’ve given to my two children (college sophomore and HS senior):
Follow your passion - Happiness trumps salary but sometimes, with luck, you can have both.
Don’t become complacent - you will have to reinvent yourself at least once a decade.
Beware the corporate job. You are in a horse race with your peers and there can be only one number one. Get out immediately if you start to fall behind your peers.
Keep your eye on the prize - work for yourself. Build your own business but this is best done while you are young. Work for someone else only long enough to learn enough and then go out on your own.
Never stop learning.
Never burn bridges.
Listen to Baz Luhrmann’s “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”</p>
<p>I agree that accounting can be a great profession and there is demand for it. SOME legal jobs still pay quite well. SOME nursing jobs & pharmacy jobs also pay quite well. So far, engineering does seem to have decent job availability & salaries, but we shall see how this progresses. My S in EE & friend’s S in chemical engineering both have not had difficulty getting job offers.</p>
<p>Daddyh, those are very interesting suggestions. What do your kids think of them? One of the happiest people I know has been a federal employee now for decades & is among the happiest with his job of anyone I’ve ever met (he does very frequently reinivent himself & has to keep learning all the time). Others I know have been with the same employer for over a decade and are happy not having the administrative hassles of running & building their own business (as far as they can tell, they’re MUCH happier than their peers who opened their own practices), but maybe we’re all a bit different.</p>
<p>Architecture has never been lucrative, but I’ve managed to keep busy for 20 years nevertheless. (People don’t ever seem to stop doing additions.) I’ve got 2 new small jobs this month which for January isn’t too bad.</p>
<p>My son is in computer science and so far seems to be in demand.</p>
Having significant knowledge creation industries is a precondition to having high paying service sector jobs.</p>
<p>This should be obvious. Engineering and patent creation are precursors to having a successful economy (and the reason 3rd world economies like Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/Singapore were able to transition into 1st world economies). If you don’t have a successful economy accounting/medicine/finance/advertising will be low paying.</p>