Ask HN: What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?
Yes. It is your life. It isn&#x27;t about what is out there. It&#x27;s about what&#x27;s in you.<p>My kids are 19, 17, 12. I tell them- you&#x27;re not going to college to get an education that is about knowledge out in the world. You are going to get an education about you. To learn about your person- your body, your brain, your own mental model of your self and other selves and the world.<p>Your person is still in physical growth mode until at least 25, and then you have lots of other changes and challenges coming after that. You will continue learning, including about your self, throughout the entirety of your life. To be set up to do that is why you&#x27;re going.<p>(Yes, college is not the real world, in any way. But in important ways it is real enough.)<p>==<p>The most important things to be able to do are- build relationships, focus and concentrate, organize your self and your thinking, communicate, have fun,  and take care of the physical self. You don&#x27;t have any idea, really, how well you do those things as a teenager. It&#x27;s the job of the adults around you to help. College is an opportunity to expose your person to more unique, distinct, varied, skilled adults and peers than at any time previous, and for some, more than they will ever get again (unfortunately). That exposure is the most intense learning the self can do.<p>For each of my kids, they have things they are good at now, and things they are not good at. Not just skills- capabilities. Biases. Potentials, not actuals. As their parent I have a good sense of possible distinct and unique trajectories for each of them given those potentials, and I do what I can to coach them onto those various trajectories and in specific work domain disciplines that are potential fits (to my eyes) for them. But that&#x27;s a conversation that is specific to our relationship. And their lives are their own.<p>For you, I would encourage you to see yourself not even at the beginning of your adventure, and to think hard and figure out good ways, with the guidance of adults you currently respect and trust, to avail yourself and position yourself to be exposed to and learn from new adults worthy of respect and trust. And pay it forward, too.