Not sure where it’s best to leave this comment, but I might want to caution a bit against leaning too heavily on “what do you like best in high school” as a guide to what to study/work on. I read your excellent engineering profile on your website and recognized myself having used my passion and abilities in high school physics to guide me to mechanical engineering. However, I really enjoy both software engineering as well as data analysis, and have some evidence I do well in these, if not better than in mechanical engineering.
The problem was that I was never exposed to software engineering or data analysis/science in high school so I did not know my passion or skill level in these disciplines. I do not know how to solve this problem of not getting exposed to all fields in high school, or even university. I love the US liberal arts education where you are forced to try other disciplines and worry that students in Europe/non-liberal-arts-institutions might only at a very late stage in their life, or not at all, realize there was something they love even more and do better in, but that they were never exposed to. I did see that you mentioned in your profile that certain universities have “discipline agnostic” first years in engineering—but I think perhaps there is a case to be made that those that do not naturally get exposed to all fields, have a hard think about whether they might actually be a better fit for something they have not yet tried.
When working out your next steps, we tend to recommend working forwards from what you know, and working backwards from where you might want to end up (see our article on finding your next career steps). We also think people should explore more with their careers (see our article on career exploration).
If there are areas where we’re giving the opposite message, I’d love to know – shoot me an email or DM?
Not sure where it’s best to leave this comment, but I might want to caution a bit against leaning too heavily on “what do you like best in high school” as a guide to what to study/work on. I read your excellent engineering profile on your website and recognized myself having used my passion and abilities in high school physics to guide me to mechanical engineering. However, I really enjoy both software engineering as well as data analysis, and have some evidence I do well in these, if not better than in mechanical engineering.
The problem was that I was never exposed to software engineering or data analysis/science in high school so I did not know my passion or skill level in these disciplines. I do not know how to solve this problem of not getting exposed to all fields in high school, or even university. I love the US liberal arts education where you are forced to try other disciplines and worry that students in Europe/non-liberal-arts-institutions might only at a very late stage in their life, or not at all, realize there was something they love even more and do better in, but that they were never exposed to. I did see that you mentioned in your profile that certain universities have “discipline agnostic” first years in engineering—but I think perhaps there is a case to be made that those that do not naturally get exposed to all fields, have a hard think about whether they might actually be a better fit for something they have not yet tried.
Totally agree! Indeed, there’s a classic 80k article about this.
When working out your next steps, we tend to recommend working forwards from what you know, and working backwards from where you might want to end up (see our article on finding your next career steps). We also think people should explore more with their careers (see our article on career exploration).
If there are areas where we’re giving the opposite message, I’d love to know – shoot me an email or DM?