How to choose where to focus your career path

Before I started university, I was overly focused on the label on my degree, the degree program I would choose, not the career it would enable. This was a common trap, one that most students tend to fall into: focusing on the next step instead of the destination. Fortunately, I had parents and a socioeconomic context during my youth that pretty much required me to focus on career outcomes as I grew older, started high school, and refined my understanding of the next steps in my life: university education. My parents and other mentors asked me useful questions about what jobs a university education in a particular field would result in, and whether I would be employable, financially independent, and (last and somewhat least) happy in those jobs.

During my high school years this led me to focus less on getting admitted to MIT and more on what program of study I would pursue and how employable I would be. This first led me to decide on architectural engineering — buildings are everywhere, after all — but increasing exposure to physics and chemistry courses in high school eventually resulted in a change of mind. I was also an avid science fiction reader and Star Trek watcher,¹ interested in physics, with Scotty and Geordi always being my favorite characters because they were unique, independent thinkers who were always there to fix problems with a bit of humor on the side. Given that, in my mind, being a physicist was out of the question — a career for others with family that could support them all the way through graduate school and beyond — chemical engineering stood out to me, a discipline known for involving challenging math, physics, and chemistry concepts while also imparting strong teamwork and leadership skills. Jack of all trades — that is who I wanted to be; that was how I could prepare for future employment. As I wrote in my previous note, I chose chemical engineering for its breadth, but the question of why I chose it began earlier, in high school, with a different question.

All the while, I spent hours and hours each week in front of my computer. At first I was extremely limited by a Mac “toaster” (Mac SE) and restricted internet access, but then my world changed rapidly with improved dial-up internet and a major hardware upgrade, a PowerCenter 150. I immediately hit limitations using the default Mac OS 7, due to its clunky GUI and instability when running applications due to memory leaks and other issues. I took a huge risk and, after weeks of trying to download the LinuxPPC installer, was able to install a Debian-based Linux distribution on my PowerCenter 150. From that point on I never turned back, having access to a vast, easily installable library of growing open-source applications. I loved computers and networking and computer science concepts, but I saw them as vital tools for my career path, not an area to dedicate my life to. It would have been very easy to focus on computer science for my career path; everyone was flooding into this area, much like AI right now. I was in a rapidly growing bubble where computers and the internet were an obsession of the mainstream. This culminated in the Dot-com Bubble,² much like what we are on the precipice of with the current AI bubble.³

Looking back, I can see that this was when I took the countercurrent path, though I would not recognize it as such until years later, when I made a much bigger countercurrent turn. I did not go into computer science, but I understood that computers, the internet, and computer science would be vital for my career, not something to dedicate my career to. I saw many of my friends, all of the brightest kids in my class, moving on to the mainstream. However, I knew that I had to focus on the countercurrent path, moving in the opposite direction, not blindly, but deliberately and carefully, because I did not know what the future would hold. What is most valuable has never changed: survival, sustainability of society, anything and everything required (not desired, but required) for that purpose. That led me to focus on careers which were vital to societal needs: food, shelter, health, and safety. Architectural engineering was probably not a bad choice, but chemical or mechanical or civil engineering was the safest bet regardless of the mainstream rush toward computers and the internet. These disciplines meet the minimum criteria — secure employment and financial stability — but I was also sure that with this training I would always be useful to society based on its needs.

Massive investment creates real opportunity — internet, additive manufacturing, nanotechnology, software-as-a-service, energy storage, autonomous vehicles, AI. Do not ignore the latest great career trends; they are always driven not just by short-term opportunity but by long-term utility. However, understand that this investment is always transient and the hype is just hype. Once the trend has faded, those who devoted their career path and, sometimes, entire identity to the trend will be left looking for the next one — and potentially underemployed or even unemployed.

The point is not to ignore trends; it is to treat them as tools, not identities. I did not ignore computers. I did not ignore the internet. In fact, I spent plenty of my free time learning and building my skills in those areas. I spend plenty of my so-called free time doing the same with AI right now, even though the hype is just hype and the bubble will eventually pop. I know that AI will change things and I know that I need to change with it, but I still stay focused on what society needs. Not to be pedantic, but again, this is the path of a countercurrent career and, in my case, a countercurrent life.

So just pick one of the traditional engineering disciplines and you will always be employed and financially secure, right? No, the training matters, but interest and experience and extracurricular activities are just as important. There are areas aligned with societal needs for which traditional engineering disciplines prepare you well, and there are entry-level jobs waiting to be filled. Energy production, resource extraction and valorization, pharmaceuticals, construction and infrastructure, materials and manufacturing — these are traditional areas of practice which are not always trendy but are enduring. However, there are so many others that engineers and scientists rarely consider, such as agriculture, healthcare, water and sanitation, education, and more that, combined with the traditional, are the substrate of civilization. They will need engineers and scientists and technicians and trades in every decade, in every economic condition, regardless of the current whims of venture capital and “the market.” This is where the countercurrent engineer puts down roots; for me it was initially vaccine production and later education. The same logic applies to trades — plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and construction are societal needs that endure in every economic condition.

Here is how I think about this in practical terms, using my own region as an example. I live in Ontario (Canada), which has several strengths including controlled-environment agriculture (greenhouse), nuclear power generation, and food and beverage processing. Separately, there are other strengths in Ontario like automotive, plastics, and battery manufacturing. The former sectors are strong and relatively independent from international partners, unlike the latter, which are highly dependent, increasingly unpredictable, with internationally-based OEMs continually bringing instability without sharing prosperity.⁴ These areas of local economic strength that are aligned with societal needs are the best choices as a direction for a countercurrent career. There is an ancillary benefit to this approach: following career trends does not always result in alignment with local labor needs and job opportunities. If you want to relocate internationally for your career, that is your choice, but is it not better for it to be a choice instead of a requirement? While it is exciting to move to a new place to pursue a new opportunity, there is a long-term cost: living far from friends and family that you grew up with.

Where you focus is only half the question; the other half is how much you need from it. Wherever and however you direct your career path, you need to “know your number”⁵ — how much income is good enough. A countercurrent career is based on a commitment to both pursue economic stability through employment and focus on areas which serve society; a career is built on a strong foundation of empathy and altruism, not accumulation. This does not mean that you should not accumulate wealth, get paid well, and pursue job opportunities which are useful, fulfilling, and financially rewarding. However, if you set a financial goal that is “enough” — your number, rising with inflation, not with ambition — you will likely never lose your security. The countercurrent career path does not involve chasing more profit, more assets, more responsibility, or more power. These are mainstream career values that, in my view, reflect an imbalance, treating society as a resource rather than a community one belongs to. The person who knows their number is balanced in their career and life goals, and is consequently harder to dispossess than the person who keeps seeking and stretching. The countercurrent career path is not just more ethical; it is more stable as a result.

Sometimes I think back to my high school self, spending hundreds of frustrating, fascinating hours on the computer exploring and learning, but never seeing these new technologies as anything more than new tools, never losing focus on what society needs rather than what current trends demand. I did not know where the countercurrent path would lead, or even that I was on it. I just knew that focusing on a career that was both interesting and useful to society was a safer bet than chasing a bubble, and that “enough” was better than “more.” I did not know I was following the right path at the time. Not because I was especially clever or insightful; if anything, it was simply because my socioeconomic situation required realism, not dreams, and because I was willing to walk the other way. If you are reading this and deciding your own direction, you do not need to follow my path. You need to find yours, and then have the discipline to stay on it when the current pulls the other way.

Footnotes and references compiled with an open-weight AI model.