Smart Money Picks 10 Rising Careers

jonathanjo writes "Smart Money announces the ten hot jobs they see rising in the next decade. Among them, many familiar to slashdotters (wireless engineer) and several of those are of dubious ethical value (data miner, IP lawyer). "Forensic Accountant" even made accounting sound cool! But why oh why did I give up on being an Adventure Travel Guide to be a web designer? D'ohh!"

Comments

"Dubious Ethical Value"

[CommunistTroll]

IP Lawyer...

Sheesh, enough with the lawyer bashing already.

Lawyers are just people like the rest of us with a job to do - sometimes their clients are wrong, sometimes right.

Next time you're up against the RIAA in court, I'd like to see you decline a lawyer on the grounds that the job is of "dubious ethical value".

I know it's oh so trendy to constantly attack the legal profession, but really. Grow up.

Re:"Dubious Ethical Value"

[Xerithane]

Same thing with data mining. Data mining does not always have to do with someone finding your data. Writing data mining software is a lot of fun, at least from my experience and my opinion. Granted, I've only done it with DNA sequences and server farm metrics. But it really is fun to see what type of equations you can come up with to calculate various metrics.

I know it's oh so trendy to constantly attack the legal profession, but really. Grow up.
Do you remember where you are at? This is slashdot.

Re:"Dubious Ethical Value"

[CommunistTroll]

Lawyers that represent clients in the wrong, are in the wrong themselves. No excuses.

Who decides that the client is in the wrong? I would prefer to have a lawyer defend me in court to the best of his or her ability and have the judge decide whether I am guilty then be convicted by default because no lawyer will touch my case.

Look up the Cab Rank Rule at your nearest Bar Association, then read through history of lawyers defending people who everyone knew were guilty; until the trial, that is.

Until a judge and a jury of peers convicts me, I am entitled to a presumption of innocence and legal representation.

Don't forget the legal representation bit.

Re:"Dubious Ethical Value"

[Chump1422]

Lawyers that represent clients in the wrong, are in the wrong themselves. No excuses.

Yeah, nobody deserves to have someone looking out for their rights. While almost all litigators take their adversarial role too far and play to win rather than find justice, everyone needs to have an advocate. Even the guilty and evil. Without that, the system is corrupt.

Re:"Dubious Ethical Value"

[ObviousGuy]

When you say, "Lawyers that represent clients in the wrong, are in the wrong themselves," do you really mean, "The guilty have no right to a fair trial"?

IP Attorney - dubious?

[ObviousGuy]

When you eschew a profession because you don't like what is going on in that part of the industry, you throw away a chance to make a difference from within.

You aren't going to change things sitting on your ass posting on /. or sending a few pennies to the EFF. If you really want to make a difference, study the law, pass the bar, put yourself in the position to affect change.

Don't Pick a Career Because It's "Hot"

[pnatural]

If you're going to work for the Man for 30+ years, you'd be better off finding out what you really love to do, and work towards being the best that you can be at that. Anything else says you're just in it for the money. That's certainly not a crime, but it will probably show in your work when compared to someone who really does love what they do.

Just my US $0.02.

Re:Don't Pick a Career Because It's "Hot"

[datastew]

My sentiments exactly. To succeed in a competitive job market, you need the extra edge that comes from having true passion for what you do.

Back when I was in high school, the "hot jobs" of the next ten years always included "systems analyst." Being the contrarian that I am, I predicted a glut of "systems analysts" and tried my hand at Mechanical Engineering. Only after "surviving" as a Mechanical Engineer for four years in college and three years working did I finally admit that I was hard-wired to be a systems analyst.

The moral: find what you love to do and ignore the Hot Careers lists.

Enjoyment and skills=$$

[BerserkDog]

It seems to me, that if you truly enjoy what you do and are ,indeed, proficient in your field->you're already on the right path. I'm a case-in-point to that very statement. I didn't even graduate H.S.(Overexaggerrated rebelliousness)-But, because I enjoy what I do, and am damn good at it, I bring in more than most college grads. The "Hot Job" is what you make it.

Pharmacist

[ajakk]

The one job that they didn't mention, which is EXTREMELY hot right now, is pharmacy. The booming number of elderly and the decreasing number of pharmacists has made the field extremely hot. I have even heard advertisements on the radio for pharmacists to switch to a different drug store. New pharmacists make can make aroun 90K a year.

Re:Pharmacist

[ealar dlanvuli]

4 yr. premed (at a decent school, if you want a chance in hell of making pharm school). 2 yr. pharm school (memorize every drug ever made, ect).

You will need a 3.7+ from premed to even get a shot at pharm school.

You will work 60-90 hour weeks, and make 40-90k a year (avg starting is around 65k). If you want a 40-50 hr. work week, you will need to work at a hospital, and your pay will be just over 55k.

It's awfully glamorized, but all the phamacists I know don't seem to be making a killing or enjoying thier jobs alot. Not to mention it's just about as hard as becoming a doctor, with exactly the same amount of competition for pharm school.

You would have better luck earning the same becoming a PHB, unless you really think it's your thing (some people really like it, I've met 2 pharmacists who seriously enjoyed thier job), you should choose a better major because you will not enjoy it as much as you think, and the money isn't *that* great.

Self-Employed

[The Cat]

Well, someone has to provide jobs, and business certainly doesn't appear up to the task.

Shoddy products, poor customer service, wasted budgets, inept management, constant layoffs. Eventually former employees will get fed up (and they probably already are) and start their own companies.

A Renaissance of Entrepreneurship is precisely what the economy needs. Not more cubicles.

Can't Choose?! Chemical Engineers do it all!

[Salis]

Well, except for the rare athletic, daring, and adventurous ChemE (all three of them ;), maybe being an Adventure Guide is out...

But ChemEs can do the rest!

Seriously, graduating with a ChemE degree, I can pick from four of the 'hot' jobs listed:

IP Lawyer, Bioinformatician, Fuel Cells, or Data Mining.

Really, data mining & bioinformatics are basically the same. Bioinformatics assumes you have a working knowledge of biology & biochemistry and can apply it to computer programming. But, it is much easier to learn biology than it is to learn data mining. But, without a very good mathematical background (Partial Diff Eqs, etc), you can kiss being an exceptional data miner out the window.

People underestimate the utility of mathematics. :(

Salis

Re:Dubious Ethical Value???

[Kintanon]

Flame away ... I'm expecting a karma hit. But I'll keep writing those software patents and suing the theives (yes -- THEIVES) who infringe them anyway.


No! Not 'THEIVES' you imbecile, Thieves! And the lack of IP laws didn't stop Leonardo De'Vinci from inventing a whole SHITLOAD of stuff, nor did it stop anyone before him. If you do something first and you do it best, you'll make money off of it, regardless of whether someone else copies it later. So quit bitching.

Kintanon