What Should Your Kid Do With Their Lives? A Short Guide to Future-Proofing a Career

If you’re the parent of a high school underclassman, you’re probably watching your kid go through the throes of figuring out what to do with their life. And there’s a lot of chatter right now about how technology is rewriting the whole career landscape. It isn’t a lie. It also isn’t entirely true.

Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab, tracking the jobs most exposed to artificial intelligence, found no evidence of widespread job loss as of August. What they did find: workers aged 22 to 25 in those fields are running about 19 percent behind where they’d be if they had kept pace with peers in less exposed jobs. Experienced workers show no such gap. And it’s slower hiring, not layoffs.

Translation: nobody is losing their career. It’s the first rung of the ladder that got harder to reach, which is exactly where your kid will be standing.

So the useful question isn’t which jobs are safe. Nobody knows that. It’s what work is hard to hand off to AI to begin with?

1. Work that needs a person in the room. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects overall employment to grow about 3 percent through 2034. Health care support roles are projected at over 12 percent, and health care is adding more new jobs than any other sector. Much of it sits in the technical tier: sonography, imaging, radiation and respiratory therapy, and surgical technology. Artificial intelligence can read a scan. It cannot position a patient or sign the chart.
2. Degrees that end in a credential instead of a job hunt. Nurse practitioner, physician assistant, physical therapist, licensed engineer, actuary, certified public accountant. What these have in common is a defined way in. Somebody has to pass the boards, hold the license, and be accountable for the call, and that person gets hired accordingly. A degree that ends in “and then you look for a job” asks a lot more of a 22 year old right now.
3. The technical side of technology. Computer and mathematical occupations are projected to grow around 10 percent, more than triple the average, with cybersecurity called out specifically. Network and cloud infrastructure, security operations, industrial automation. These are the roles that keep everything else running, and they tend to reward certifications and hands-on hours as much as pedigree. Somebody still has to build the systems and fix them at 2am.
4. The liberal arts, because they travel. The Strada Education Foundation found that 70 percent of liberal arts graduates change careers between their first and second job, versus 53 percent of information technology majors. By job three, most land in marketing, communications, or management roles. When entry points narrow, a kid who can move between them has an advantage. In a 2026 employer survey, teamwork, problem solving, and communication all ranked above technical skills. So that’s where the work is. Getting your student pointed at it is the other half.
5. Point the interest at an industry. My favorite move with a student who has a passion and no plan. Take my world: Sailing. Education? Teach sailing. Engineering? Design sails, hulls, foils. Fashion? Technical apparel and foul weather gear. Psychology? Sports psychology. Medicine? Sport-specific training and physical therapy. Business? Fundraising and running regattas. Environmental Science? Racecourse forecasting. The same thread runs through horses, theater, gaming, cooking. Every industry needs engineers, communicators, clinicians, scientists and money people.
6. Test it before you pay for it. Have your student interview a few adults about what their job actually consists of on a Tuesday, not what it’s called. A kid who thinks they want medicine should be inside a clinical setting before senior year. Half come back with a different answer, and the other half come back certain. Either result is worth having at 15 instead of 25.

Ask a teenager what they want to be and most will say they don’t know. Ask what they love and they’ll talk your ear off. Start there.

Nikki Bruno runs Student Coaching Services, working with students on college admissions, career planning, and executive function skills. studentcoachingservices.com, 732-903-5327.