I (23M, American) feel completely paralyzed from a career perspective because I have no idea what the hell to do. If I choose the wrong degree program, I have to pay back all the debt with nothing to show for it. Even if I get a job, there’s no telling how long that will last. Everything keeps changing so fucking fast and it seems like any field I could go to college for could cease to be viable by the time I finish. On top of that, I have chronic health conditions to worry about that limit what I can even do.

(Edit: Basically I have POTS and a neck injury, so it’s hard to do physical labor and I suffer from dizziness, brain fog, and fatigue from being up for an hour or so. I don’t know my exact limits yet, since the severity of my condition varies by day and there appear to be ways to partially recover from the fatigue without having to lay down.)

I think stuff like urban planning and designing walkable environments would be cool, but I’m not sure if that’s a viable path in 2027 and beyond. I also used to be interested in programming, but ever since AI and mass layoffs hit the scene, I’ve become disillusioned and stopped pursuing that path.

I used to feel like the world was stable and I could pick a career based on my passion and be fine. But ever since 2020, everything has felt increasingly more uncertain. The world seems to be losing its collective shit and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

Is staking your sense of stability on your career the wrong way to think about this? Should I be trying to find close friends or some kind of supportive community that could act as a safety net? Or is everyone too hyperindividualist to look out for each other?

  • Psythik@lemmy.world
    2·
    21 hours ago

    To elaborate, by “happy with your major” I meant more like “willing to work in your chosen industry for the rest of your life” than “enjoy your work”.

    I agree with you 100%. One of the reasons why I dropped out is because I saw myself living a future hating one of my favorite hobbies… In fact it already happened. I’ve done some tech support on the side here and there over the decades; eventually I stopped fixing computers because I got tired of hearing people say to me, “something different broke and you were the last one to touch the PC so it’s all your fault”. Not to mention the frustration of dealing with a computer that just won’t work. This is the same reason I’ll never be a mechanic despite loving cars. I like electronics and machines better when they’re functional.

    Hell, my current gaming rig died after I replaced the CMOS battery and I just do not want to deal with the hassle of trying to figure out why it won’t POST anymore. So I bought a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter and my $4000 gaming rig just sits in the corner of my office partially disassembled because I just cannot be bothered. My phone is my desktop now.

    Anyway sorry for the ADHD-induced tangent. Point I’m making is that you provided some solid advice and I hope OP reads it.