Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by atmosx 1156 days ago
> In a world where nothing seems sure anymore what would you do?

Assuming you're talking about the job market, nothing was sure at any given point in time. Of course, after the fact everything seems "obvious" but I assure you at the time it wasn't.

The only thing I would be my cards os is studying medicine: If you become a surgeon you'll most likely make lots of money, the downside is that it takes lots of work and time to do so.

Whatever you do, from chef and small business retail owner to startups - make sure you're good at what you do and you won't have to worry about the market.

> Would you bother getting an education?

If you are _really good_ at programming (e.g. you already know how to program relatively complex CRUD applications) my advice is to study something else e.g. Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Social Sciences, etc. Diversified profiles are the most sought after.

Going to college is not just about learning CS (or whatever) fundamentals. It is about friendships, having fun, entering adulthood. Try to take advantage of the Erasmus system, travel as much as you can, as cheaply as you can, meet ppl, do crazy shit while staying on track with your classes. It is important to "exit" student's life within the expected time frame, helps a lot.

> When knowledge becomes meaningless is there a reason to learn?

Knowledge is _never_ meaningless. Most of the _experts_ on any given field have lots of knowledge that at first glance might seem irrelevant but they're able to mix and match in order to advance the knowledge on a specific field.

My guess is that you're referring to modern tech stacks. Often times seasoned users complain about how "this" or "that" stack has nothing new to offer apart from X which was already a thing 15 years ago with a different name. That's part because of age - we all become a bit of a whiners when getting old - but primarily because the already knew the old tech stack inside out so they can analyse, break down and understand the decisions (good and bad) of the new stack on the fly. When your time comes you'll have to learn to current tech stack and make your own decisions.

Wish you success in your life.

2 comments

I work with surgeons and the running joke is that practical procedure based medicine just sucks - the hours, the physical work, the hospital, the conflicts and politics. It’s all truly brutal.

However I do agree 100% with what you said. Witnessing them fixing a newborn infant was an insane experience for me and I was super jealous.

What they recommend is still medicine, but the non-practical fields - prescribing medications, designing and administering complex treatments from the comfort of an office.

My personal take is that everything and anything medical will never ever go away as long as there are humans. I love the fact I get to work in both a software dev world and the medical world. Software still can do so much for that.

> make sure you're good at what you do and you won't have to worry about the market

No... make sure you strive to do the best you can in whatever you do. It's not about being "good enough". If you care about your work (whatever it may be), be a good human, and put in effort to learn and do the best you can at your given job - you will succeed.

Don't be afraid to take chances when you're young.

Being good at what you do is a side effect of caring about what you do and putting in the effort to learn about your job, your industry and the people around you.