“Cough,” indeed. 450 apps for one opening DH was handling. So many fine academics cobble together a few p/t jobs. Know how little those pay? And until you get tenure, no real job security.
Work is hard. For everyone. The work that is assigned to you, or that clients ask you to do, is the work couldn’t be handled by someone less educated/experienced/skilled/able. No matter how smart you are, you get the work that was just too hard for the people on the next level below you.
Every single job requires competence in mathematics and writing.
If your boss or client gives you a deadline, meet it. Because if you miss deadlines, eventually the end client will say, “I can’t rely on this guy to get my stuff done when I need it; don’t assign my projects to him any more (or I’ll take my business elsewhere).” When it gets to that stage, it doesn’t matter how good your work product is, they want and need your work product when they say; so don’t go down that path. Be timely, be punctual, be reliable. Or they will hire someone else who is.
Pick something you enjoy doing, because you’re going to be doing it for many years.
This does not look like a good decade to go into Law, unless you happen to have an Electrical Engineering background.
Grad school is a very expensive way to extend your non-working years. If you can’t find work with the degree you have, is it worth the debt to not find work for a few more years?
@ucbalumnus 
no, not a surprise. However, I still empathize with the reality some idealistic young people face…especially when you consider how much effort and money they’ve spent on their degree.
And I agree with @FCCDAD. “Grad school is a very expensive way to extend your non-working years.” You not only spend “X” dollars for your graduate degree, you also lose those years of income. The earlier you begin to build your wealth, the better off you will be. I emphasize this when talking with my children.
“International” anything is overrated.
“International law” is just pushing paper in an office, regardless of how “international” it is.
Do what you love, as long as the pay is decent. Unfortunately there’s no easy way in any type of career.
Legal services are as much in demand, if not more so, than they have ever been. But the number of lawyers willing and able to fulfill those demands is not keeping pace, because it’s difficult to pay back student loans on the fees one can collect from low- and middle-income individuals who need legal services. It’s possible but lawyers need to develop their business skills to succeed.
I wish high school students who aspire to be a vice president or partner at some company would realize the time commitment and stress that come with the title. That moving up the corporate ladder involves sacrificing your work/life balance.
I wish that FLEXIBILITY in a future career choice was considered alongside salary and prestige. Some careers are more suited for part time, or allow for a worker to step out for a season and return without having to start over at the bottom rung.
It is all about choices, and no one can tell a teenager what it’s like to have to choose between work and earning money or staying home with your child. Each person’s choice is their own to make, but sometimes the right choice can still have a high emotional price.
I am frustrated that not one of my female teachers ever had that conversation with me when we spoke of college and career. But as my friends noted, would I have even listened?
Of course, someone who has a low cost lifestyle will find a larger range of jobs where “the pay is decent” (i.e. enough to live without personal finance stress) than someone with a high cost lifestyle. The former person will find it easier to do what s/he lives while making a decent living. The latter person is more likely to have to make the tradeoff between doing what s/he loves and doing what pays the bills.
Anyone want to comment on finding jobs abroad/living internationally?
This may be my favorite thread ever. Kudos to OP for starting it.
I will add that young people should realize that they may make one or several shifts in careers throughout their working lives. What you decide at 20 won’t necessarily be what you are doing at 40.
This is true, but not always obvious which careers are flexible.
For example: I have female friends who downshifted ambitions of med school because they were convinced that they couldn’t raise a family and be a doctor too. Meanwhile I have a family member who is a physician who was able to work part time when her kids were small
I have read here on cc how difficult it is to be an engineer and raise a family but I know 3 women who are engineers and have worked part time while raising families.
I think it’s fairly obvious that if one dials back any professional career with either part time or staying out altogether there will be a sacrifice in terms of advancement/salary etc.
The work world has changed considerably in the last 20-30 years. Many workplaces are becoming more flexible (slowly, but…) and technology continues to change things.
Do what you love.
So, you wanna be a Doctor? ( 
--sort of. . .)
Do you like gross stuff? Because you might actually have to work with sick/injured/dying people–this can be very stressful and unpleasant in every sense. Icky, not glamorous.
Do you like tedious stuff, too? Because you might have to spend more time documenting what you just did than you spent doing it.
Do you like work more than time off? Or sleep? You may have the opportunity to work very long hours. For the rest of your life. So cross all the weekends and holidays off your calendar, because every day (and night) is just another day of work.
Do you like dysfunctional families? Because there is a good chance you might have one.
Do you really like making money? Because when you work for a hospital or corporation (as most docs do), you will be pressured to do what is best for the company (which may conflict with what you think is best for your patients). Did you think it was all about serving mankind//the Hippocratic Oath/morals/ethics. Nah. It’s about maximizing income–for the corporation.
(P.S. Of course I realize there are exceptions to all of these–I know a lot of part-time docs/docs who don’t deal with icky stuff, docs who never take call, docs with functional families who don’t work for corporations, too. This is supposed to be humorous, not an example of every doctor’s situation.)
I had a friend who was a gerontologist who had a job sharing arrangement when the kids were younger.
A lot of young people know have “gigs” and temporary positions rather than full-time “permanent” jobs. Many may have few or no benefits and definitely little or no job security. You have to be adgile and ADD to the business or you will be downsized, no matter how charming and friendly you are. The more your skill set can help your business (whatever the business is), the more valuable a team member you can be. Having no debt and living well below your means are crucial skills in these uncertain economic times. Save a lot for rainy days in the future, because there will likely be some storms to weather.
Of course, physicians with their own private practices also face financial pressures to keep their practices afloat.
Yeah, that was mentioned in #4. (Lived both, personally. Prefer collecting the paycheck from corporation to running a business–disadvantages to both, of course.)
. Talk to actual professionals in the occupation that interests you. Don’t take advice seriously from someone who knows someone who knows someone who does that thing.
But also realize that those working in the field may have found much better or much worse career opportunities in the past than there are today.
For academia/college professor - well, I’m a postdoctoral fellow, but having been immersed in the field for the last 7 years, I have a few thoughts about that - oh boy, do I have a few thoughts about that.
The two most important things:
1 - The golden apple in the field is the full-time, tenure-track position - you work for 6 years, you get tenure, you have a job for life. The reality is that these jobs are being eliminated and replaced with contingent labor - part-time adjuncts who teach for an average of $3,000 per class with no benefits, or occasionally a full or part-time non-tenure track lecturer position that is usually poorly compensated. Or, honestly, advanced graduate students, who often teach courses at their university for low pay. So it's not uncommon for tenure-track positions to have 200-300+ applications for one position, especially if it is in a desirable city/location or at a great college, and for at least half of those applicants to actually be well-qualified, excellent candidates. Being excellent is not enough. The jobs are still out there, of course, and every year some people get them. The majority do not.
2 - In my experience, most undergrads want to be professors because they want to teach classes like their favorite professors. However - at least in the social, natural, and physical sciences (and probably also in the humanities) - the focus of a PhD program is *research*, as is most of a professor's career. In graduate school, you will be measured on your achievements and output in research; your teaching will hardly matter if at all. When (not if - not these days) you go to a postdoc, your time will most likely be spent 100% in research. When you apply for a tenure-track position, your marketability will be primarily measured on the basis of how much you've published and where during grad school and your postdoc. And when you come up for tenure, your tenure decision will be based heavily upon what you've published and where. This is absolutely true at top-level research universities; the provost of my grad school flat out said teaching doesn't really matter. Even at elite and mid-ranked LACs this is true; although you do also have go be a good teacher, you still have to publish papers and maybe bring in a small grant or two to get tenure. And at small regional and teaching-only schools, research might be less important, but some research productivity is still important.
Other brief notes:
- Graduate school is very stressful; even (especially) the most successful students experience high levels of stress. A study profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education estimated that over 60% of graduate students experience at least mild depression at some point during their program.
- Prepare to move ANYWHERE, particularly if you are in the humanities. Academic jobs don't function like many corporate jobs, where you apply in your city; instead, the market opens nationally each August/September, and you apply everywhere. Since positions are so competitive students who really want to be professors need to be open to moving anywhere across the country, and often to small college towns that are not within a few hours' driving to a large city. (This is also true of postdocs; often the best postdoctoral positions are at research universities in small college towns. If you had told me 6 years ago I'd be living 3 hours from the nearest major city I would've laughed at you. Guess where I am?)
- Given the competition for jobs it's virtually a requirement that you do something "preparatory" for 2-5 years between grad school and a TT position. In the sciences (natural and physical) this is almost always at least one postdoc, and often 2-3. In the social sciences, this is usually a postdoc, but might be a visiting professor position. Some people are research scientists in the middle. Often these postdocs are not in the same place. A close friend of mine did her doctoral degree at a top 10 program in one city, and graduated with 8-10 publications in peer-reviewed, top journals (that is a lot for a doctoral graduate in my field). She then went to a postdoc at a top university my field (talking top 5 department) and got even more publications, then went on the market. Struck out! She's now moving to do another postdoc back in grad city. When I graduated my advisor (who acknowledged that I was a top student) actually advised me to extend my 2-year postdoc to 3-4 years in order to have more time to get more publications and look better on the market.
In what kind of life should the 6 years I took to get my PhD and the 2 years of a postdoc not be enough?
- Oh yeah, and by the way, at top universities in the natural, physical, and social sciences you will often have to pay a percentage of your salary yourself, through grants. (In my PhD department, the percentage was 80%! This was a private university, so contemplate that - top-ranked, private university, but 80% of the average faculty member's salary is being covered by public monies.) In fact, at many top universities the only way to get tenure is to get grants - both directly (they count in your tenure file) and indirectly (you need grants to pay for the equipment, research, and the staff in your lab to keep your research going). The problem is that NIH and NSF funding has been stagnant since the recession, even as reliance on federal research money has grown, and grant funding rates at both the NIH and NSF are at historic lows.
I WILL say this, though - I have talked to professors at elite LACs, and their lifestyle does seem to be quite different. While they are still expected to do research, the grant pressure is not there in the same way, and they are also expected to genuinely connect with their undergraduate students and teach great, innovative classes. They also generally seem to have better work/life balance - 40-60 hours a week depending on their own work style and goals. Moreover, they seem to get tenure at consistent rates. I asked a panel of LAC professors how often people get denied tenure at their colleges, and 1) all of them knew the tenure rates, and they were all above 90% and 2) none of them knew anyone in recent memory who had been denied tenure. If I were to go into academia, that’s the kind of position I’d want honestly - teaching at a small liberal arts college.
Anyone interested in academic job in the future should lurk around the Chronicle of Higher Education’s forums and read some articles in the CHE, particularly Vitae (the offshoot magazine directed at early career academics trying to get jobs). I’ve gleaned a lot just by watching and listening.
Any job related with the energy industry will cycle. Those new grads last year in pet. Eng. or land management, the ones making more than their parents, hope you have been saving most of your income. Boom and bust.