Ask Lemmy

Get a degree in accounting. The last person to ever get the axe when jobs start getting cut are the accountants. It will be a boring job but the thing is, boring is good! Boring means your needs are met and you aren't stressed out. Boredom is a first world problem. An easy, boring job that pays well is what I would tell my 27 y/o self to go for if I could. I've given my (now adult) kids this same advice FWIW.

If you wouldn’t really want to do programming, don’t. That only gets worse for a lot of people. It’s something I enjoy and have done well at, and it can be tempting given the number of jobs and growth, and good pay. However the people I know who are most miserable are those who weren’t especially interested in the work but the jobs and the money.

I’m sure you could do programming, and you’d deal with it a few years, but it’s a specialty that not everyone will enjoy, and you may just get more and more miserable.

I Personally believe not enough people start from the other side, the subject matter interest. Pretty much every field needs programming or technical skills, and data science is exploding across many fields. Definitely an option to consider is whatever subject you like, but the technical skills to bring the automation or the data analysis. That going to be huge!

Persue lots of money now and achieve lots of free time later

I always ask people with cultural interests if they enjoy writing, and have ever thought of writing books. Could even be writing fiction, incorporating your own cultural interests into the setting and characters. For example, someone's journey to find a lost relative, or solve a mystery about an ancestor. Just a thought.

can’t even imagine what type of job I’d love

Fun fact! Most of us don't love our jobs. We just do them to have a roof over our heads and food on our tables.

First: stay strong, you got this.

If you're "not really" into CS, I would think long and hard before committing to it. While it's very useful to pick up a few basic skills, studying theoretical computer science is a whole different level. I'd suggest you look at the basics, start programming on some of the websites people have suggested in the comments and do a few small projects for yourself. Then at least you'll know, if you have fun programming and problem solving.

I studied computer science without knowing much about it when I started, and it was a good decision for me - however it wouldn't have been for everyone.

Can you speak italian, french, and english fluently and if so how common is that around you? If you can speak several languages fluently and its not a common thing then you may want to look at law.

I'm 48. You have ages. Do it now or you'll be me remembering when I was you.

Jobs are just a means to live life. If you can make money doing something you love, great. But if you can't, use the money from work to pursue your hobbies and interests.

I travel (I'm on a flight to Queretaro, Mexico right now), paint, play music, run a D&D game, and snowboard. I also speak several languages like you. Use them or lose them, literally.

Live a full life; your job doesn't define you.

You won't love your job. Get a job you'd be good at and that pays well. Spend your free time doing what you love.

So far, I found that many people underestimate the soft skills they bring. For many (not all) jobs the actual knowledge of the field you need to fulfill the job can be learned quite fast. But they need people that are good organizers or good communicators or good critics, or people that dive in and check every detail or people good in seeing the bigger picture. I sometimes think its more important to find a job fitting to your softskills than to your degree. In an ideal Job it would be both of course.

For example. My father switched fields from social worker to systems administrator. Most would say what a big shift, but he just loves to help people - no matter if its their daily life or their computers he can help with. But IT had better job opportunities. He is very happy.

Tell us more about your skills and maybe we have more specific ideas for you.

In my 20s I worked a lot of different jobs in a lot of different industries and learned something from each one. There is nothing wrong with making a living until you can make a career.

If you can afford it, just get a MBA and try to get a business job. It may not be the most exciting career path, but it's at least pretty guaranteed to get you a job that pays decently (of course salaries vary widely but this is one of the paths to least resistance) and opens up a ton of opportunities.

Again, this is advice for if you don't have an alternative career parh that excites and motivates you. It's just a decent way to get a decent paying (or even well paying) job. Better than nothing.

For me, a job is just a way to pay the bills and build wealth with the hope of retiring early. I get my satisfaction from my hobbies and family, not my job.

I think a problem is that many jobs exist in the world, and we don't even know that most of them exist or what they are. If there are any really large companies near you, see if you can get in doing something, anything. Once you are in, you can learn about the different types of jobs in the company and maybe start trying to work towards something that you like better, either within that company or in another company. Also just having co-workers or a boss to discuss these things with can be a big help and open you up to some new possibilities that you didn't know about. But yeah, don't worry about finding your perfect job right away. Having any job will open doors and connections, making it easier to land that perfect job in the future.

Since you're not sure what you want to do, I say don't pursue a specific career, but pursue a field that interests you. You might not have the luxury of finding a job opening for exactly what you want, even if you did have something specific in mind, but by having relevant skills you can get closer and eventually find something that works for you.

I went to school for a certain field, found a job that was in no way related, and eventually got a position there that did use my education (I was chosen because of it). 10 years later, found a new company in "my field" that uses both my education and the skills from the previous job that I thought would never be useful elsewhere. The more things you can put on your resume, the better, especially in a world where AI will be screening thousands of applications for the most keywords.

If you want to know more about Computer Science, you can also read along and ask questions over at https://programming.dev/c/cs_career_questions

"Discover What You Are Best At" by Linda Gail.

I was about the same age as you are now when I found this book. It led me to a career I'd never even sonsidered before.

i think if i were in your stead, i'd try the one i like first more. at least from that path, you can tell yourself you tried your best at your fave.

all three are equal at the starting point, imo.

The first option sounds to be fitting your interest the most, so why not go with that?

As it reads like another study course, the question is if the reasons for giving up your original course still persist. If so, deal with that first, I would suggest.

I can’t picture myself in 5/10 years from now and can’t even imagine what type of job I’d love, bc everything seems out fo reach and impossible

You're approaching this with 100% the wrong view and attitude. You sound like you're trying to define your life by what job you have. Your job should just be the way you fund your life.

Find out what you want out of life. Do you want a family? Do you want to travel? Make art? Build community? Learn what hobbies you enjoy, how you want to spend your days, who you like to surround yourself with. Then figure out what you need financially to make that happen to the best of your ability. (Nothing will ever be perfect, and you shouldn't expect that.) Then find a job that can fund the lifestyle you want.

Who cares what the job is? That's not what life is about. That's just how you pay for your life. Most people don't love their job. Hell, most people don't even like their job. It's just how we get food and shelter.

If you're at a University of some kind, you can ask a counselor there about job shadowing opportunities in the fields you are considering.

Which of the majors you are considering pays the best?

Which has the most available jobs?

Which has the most flexibility?

And which of those three answers above matters the most to you?

The first thing to consider is: can you afford the luxury of picking something you like?

In an ideal world we get the job we want, we have fun doing it, nice colleagues, etc.. This may not be true for you. You can pick a job you don't particularly like, if the job market seems good, use that to just afford living and go from there. That makes it somewhat easy, because you're no longer picking something that's "nice" you're optimizing working conditions: working times, union coverage, how long the education takes, vs. how much it pays. Maybe you find that working in a sewage plant or being a plumber isn't nice, but way better than doing a public facing customer service job. Or working your ass off in academia, 60 hours a week, with the reward of a wet handshake, a mention in a paper that's cited 5 times that your supervisor uses to boost their standing but not yours and a two year timer on job stability.

I can’t picture myself in 5/10 years from now and can’t even imagine what type of job I’d love, bc everything seems out fo reach and impossible, just like it felt when I was 20.

I’m afraid of wasting time bc of my age

Besides the job, what do you even want? And that question is hard and some people don't find the answer for decades, so don't stress over it. Sometimes it takes a decade of life experience to come to an "obvious" conclusion. The trick is that the ten years aren't "wasted", they are *necessary" to give you the context to understand what you want.

We are generally limited in the time we have, but it's only really urgent in three aspects: if you are terminally ill, you are becoming old or disabled and physically can't do certain things and family planning. If you know you want kids, make a plan for 10 years into the future. That's important because the requirements around kids are completely different than without. I don't think traveling with toddlers is smart, kids are expensive, they will eat your time and attention. If you want to get something bigger done, consider doing it before having kids, or your kids making you choose them instead of your "dream". Which can be bad, because you never ever want to think that you could have done X if only you didn't have kids. That's a regret that poisons a lot of things.

Anyway, YOU still have plenty of time. At least 10 years, probably 20, until you even have to start worrying about anything.

Do you care for art, people, technology, animals? Sitting on a couch? Sports? Cooking? Baking? Culture? Anything?

If nothing particular jumps at you, it's totally fine to browse e.g. movies, technology, memes, comics, music, literature, or to travel until you find something that strikes you. Like, do you even know what's out there? How are you supposed to pick something you like if you haven't seen anything?

Society throws a lot of things at you that you are supposed to care about and supposed to do, but you have to actually explore and decide if those things are actually for you, or if you just believe or do them because everyone you know does them or talks about them.

I recommend writing a diary or taking notes on this. Revisiting your old thoughts can be difficult and it's easier to organize your thoughts on paper.

Personally, I finished a technical education, worked in a few projects and even finished a few things I didn't like to test out what I didn't like and want to avoid. E.g. I worked in a city I didn't live in, commuted 3 hours one way every other weekend, lived in conditions I didn't like... It wasn't nice in the moment, but now I know what to avoid.

Final note: statistics say you are not alone. The opposite in fact, lots of young people go through the same issues. So maybe that's comforting, idk.

What was that study course and what made it hell? Might want to a avoid a similar situation in the future.

What exactly seems out of reach and impossible? If you had something specific in mind but gave it up, it might be a good way forward to consider something similar with less (or more manageable) obstacles.

Have you considered job perspectives abroad? It might be even harder to get a good picture of the situation abroad, but there could be chances there.

What are your passions or things you like? Languages, obviously, and that is great because that gives you a much greater area to look for jobs (if you want to maybe go abroad).