What careers should a college student consider in a world with oil shortages and global climate changes?

Question

What careers should a college student consider in a world with oil shortages and global climate changes?

Answer 1

Sustainable processes and living will be a growing field oce it's crystal clear that we're introuble.  Someone will have to get us out of the mess.

If either the peak oil issue or global warming get bad enough (only a question of when if the U.S. and China stay on their current course) that global governments start to collapse, you'll also have skills transferrable to survival:

Ten Ways to Prepare for a Post-Oil Society

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Fr...

Genetically modified crops will be in high demand as we try to engineer corn that will pollinate faster (and not die before harvest as summer heat arrives earlier and hits harder).  That career supposes however that there will always be genetic labs in business, not exactly a transferrable skill if societies get simpler as a result of oil supply issues.

I wouldn't recommend engineering.  Wages have plummeted in recent years as U.S. businesses have imported cheap foreign labor under H1-B visas.  Computer programmers and IT professionals have it particularly hard now due to competition from India, but China is graduating 1 million engineers per year so it's only a matter of time before that problem gets worse and other engineering professions suffer the same fate.  We're even training people in other countries to manage those foreign engineers for us; the last shred of our value is being shipped overseas.

Geographic Information systems is in high demand, but it invovles some programming so wages there have dropped lately (a lot of the positions require experience and advanced programming skills, but are now listed as "internships" paying $10/hour).    

Engineering is great as a supporting skill in a field such as renewable energy, but it'll be particularly useful if you focus on specialties that require strong mastery of English and lifetime knowledge of our culture: urban planning, etc.  Of course that assumes that government will be intact and have enough revenue flowing to continue to plan and execute new projects...

Whatever you do, learn Chinese.  Study and/or live there for a while if possible.  We're gong to have to interact with the world's dominant population on an increasing basis, and having the ability to work with them will be a key job skill.

Answer 2

Most people go to college to get skills for a career. This is not a good reason to go to college or university.

Did you know that 70% of people who take post secondary education never work in the fields in which they study?

Get a broad based education that will provide you with lots of mathematics, physics, reading, and writing skills. Take the hardest courses you can manage.

Make sure to take time to travel to obscure corners of the world as part of your informal education.

You'll get better marks if you really are drawn to the subject you are studying. If you really enjoy the subject it will be more likely to lead to a career you will be happy in.

Any notions of oil shortages, global climate change, or other chicken little fears should not have any influence in your education and career choices. If these fears are really a driver then the best career choice is aerospace engineering so that you can build a spacefaring craft and get off the planet. (lots of maths and physics at least)

Answer 3

Any you want.  Follow your dreams, don't dictate your future by this passing phase.  If you like computers, go for computers; if you like music, go for that.

This climate change phase isn't something that should push you in one direction or another.

Answer 4

go for an environmental degree/diploma. you work for an environmental company and you all work together to clean up spills, etc... monitor emissions.... thats what i do. and i just graduated last spring.

Answer 5

Social work

engineering

agriculture

holistic health

actually, pretty much anything. If and when the collapse comes, we're going to need everything, from doctors to farmers. Or Farmers to doctors. I'm not trying to short change farmers, I usually trust them more than doctors anyway. :P