Are Kids Still Looking for Careers in Tech?

High school today students face an uncertain path. AI is changing the valuation of skills in the job market, and the Trump administration’s budget cuts have blocked scientific research across all disciplines. It seems unlikely that most professions will be the same in 10 years, let alone 50 years. Even students interested in STEM subjects wonder: what can my career look like and how can I get there?

WIRED spoke to five high school students from across the country about their interest in STEM and how it makes sense of the future.

These comments have been edited for length and clarity.

This generation must be at the forefront of AI development

I have always had an interest in computer science, but my interest in AI started in my first year. What hooked me was how applicable this was to our daily lives. I saw the rise of ChatGPT and other LLMs, and how people used them in my academic life. Some people would use it unethically on tests or assignments, but it could also be used to create practice problems. Being able to see how quickly this is evolving in front of me is the main reason I became interested. This affects our academic life so much that it is imperative that we are at the forefront of how it is developed.

My school is a maths and science academy, so I was able to explore independent research related to LLMs. One of the main things I worked on was how LLMs can sometimes indirectly disclose private data. Let’s say you ask it to code something for you that requires an API key, which is sensitive information. Because it is trained on a large amount of data, it might have an API key in its dataset and it will provide you with code, possibly including the API key. My most successful research project was to develop an algorithm to remove these private data elements during its training, in order to allow it not to disclose these private data elements during its use.

AI is such a new and evolving field that if we can get a foothold in it now, we might see this result as we get older. Understanding its security is very important to me, especially since it is used almost blindly by everyone. What interests me is being at the forefront and being able to have a say in the use of my data.

I’m currently applying to undergraduate programs and also looking into non-traditional routes, where you go directly into an industry. Right now in IT, sometimes a degree is just a foundation, and if you have the skills, it’s not even necessary. So I’m looking at other options. —Laksh Patel, 17, Willowbrook, Illinois

Access to healthcare starts with communities

My family, on both sides, has a long history of women suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, primarily Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. So I spent my entire childhood playing doctor, treating the matriarchs of my family, taking care of them and observing the evolution of their illnesses. I became so interested in how these diseases worked and how I could help patients like those in my family and community who didn’t have access to medical resources due to their income.

I truly developed a love for patient care, for being able to help someone in such a debilitating time in their life. As female family members began to disappear and disappear, I realized how quickly these illnesses spread and why they are so detrimental, especially without proper medication. When I entered high school, I started to move towards research, so that I could gain a basic level of understanding to take to university to try to start my career as soon as possible and help more people.