Jobs with a future

With the job market in flux, how can colleges prepare students for any career?

By F.S. WOLFE

Google it, and you'll find the prediction takes various forms: a fifth/a quarter/a third of all jobs that people will be doing in 15/20/25 years have yet to be conceived, or the job you're doing now won't exist in 20 years, or not in the way you do it now. Pinning down percentages and time frames is almost beside the point. We can all name jobs that have become endangered or extinct in the past couple of decades: film projectionist, typesetter, computer programmer. On the other hand, in 1985 who was a Web designer, barista, personal trainer, or blogger?

It's no news that occupations come and go and change. What is new is how fast the job market seems to be changing. Take, for example, the now-you-see-them/now-you-don't phenomenon of thousands of US jobs lost to outsourcing. Careerplanner.com says nowadays it's not uncommon for someone to have five careers over a lifetime; it doesn't say whether that's voluntarily or not.

Can you educate people to be ready for new jobs and career changes? How many freshmen picking a major will have to retool by the time they finish school, never mind in five or 10 years?

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