What vocations should students be strongly encouraged to consider? Computer science seems to be the newest thing. We may be thinking too narrowly. Perhaps the potential income of the next Zuckerberg is encouraging parents and educators to focus students toward coding related careers.
I wonder. Being a builder or home remodeler has great career opportunities. You cannot be outsourced and you might land your own show on the “home beautiful” channel. I am just guessing here. What I know about these vocations I have learned by watching television and hiring to work in my home. From my observations, construction seems to be quite lucrative and creative work. Coding jobs are easily sent to other countries and who would be interested in the “coding channel”?
I am trying to be humorous, but I think we must be careful when expecting young people to explore based on our values or what seems to be careers that may or may not be important in a decade.
How we learn to code is also an issue. Many of the success stories result from personal passion and informal learning rather than formal training. Programming is a great skill to teach yourself and to learn by doing. Check this TechCrunch post by a young coder.