Let’s face the fact! Most of our generation believed in 1989 sequel to ‘Back to the Future’ and expected flying cars to be here somewhere around 2015 (Obviously not in Pakistan but at least in the USA). But 2015 has now passed and flying cars still sound like a crazy idea. However, it is also true that due to technological advances, world has been able to catch up to several crazy ideas from the past. The wild imagination of movies can surprisingly predict a lot about the emerging careers/fields for today’s generation as there are always some brilliant minds working on those dreams. This is something that has given rise to today’s emerging yet overlooked fields in education specifically in Pakistan.
Technological advancement has vastly affected the demand for set of skills and now the demand for new skills has emerged for knowledge based industries. With a large number of IB schools and now STEM education, parents should dig deeper into the current trends in international markets to analyze changing trends for each field. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has identified many skill sets that will be outdated or replaced by technology in coming decades. Parents need to pave the way for their kids towards future oriented careers by getting more information on these advanced skills and their prerequisites.
Based on several surveys and studies, we have shortlisted the following emerging fields that your child can find interest in.
1. Big Data Specialists
With unimaginable speed that data for consumers, products, entities, and everything else is building up, the term ‘Big Data’ has gained due significance overtime. Analysts predict big data specialists to be one of the highest paid individuals in future. Big data deals with variety, velocity and volume of data collected and is technology dependent. For becoming a Big Data specialist, learners need to understand technologies like Hadoop, Java, Hive, distributed computing and other analytics tools and software. The application areas for big data specialists include financial services, telecommunications, business and performance optimization, commerce, security and law enforcement and many others. According to IBM, jobs for data scientists will reach in millions after 2020.
With several programming and coding courses offered in Pakistan under STEM courses or schools, students can learn open source frameworks or programming languages to understand their interest in the field from as early as 8 years old and onward.
2. Data Analytics and Data Science
Data Analytics and Data Science comes under umbrella of Big Data and encompasses all ways in which data is discovered, conditioned, extracted, compiled, processed, analyzed, interpreted and visualized for presentation. Big corporations will continue to need data scientists and analytics for smoothening functions of companies. Data scientist will be among the leading professions as predicted by BLS after 2020. Data sciences and analytics incorporates mathematics, statistics, computer science and programming, statistical modeling, database, artificial intelligence, language processing, visualization etc.
To become a data scientist and analytic, mathematics should remain as a subject to continue after middle school.
3. Biotechnology
The global population is reaching far stretched limits and the world is inclining more and more towards biotechnology to tackle this issue. Pakistan is one of the worst affected countries from climate change. The government has already taken several initiatives in hybrid farming through agricultural reforms and employment of bio technicians in this regard to cover shortage of food. Biotechnology is also one of the fastest growing industries abroad. This makes it an attractive and high-paid field for future graduates. Some of the job titles that comes under biotechnology include the following:
- Vertical farming
- Genetic seed engineering
- Biochemistry
- Biomedical engineer
- Crime Lab technician
- Clinical Research Associate
- Environmental Engineer and many more
4. Augmented Reality and Virtual World Creator
The increasing interest of children and adults in gaming industry and VR is not unknown to us. With advanced technology and increasing demand, software developers and computer engineers are shifting to the field of AR and VR. The creation of AR and VR requires highly skilled hardware and software engineers along with designers, artists and architects to build virtual worlds. This is again an emerging yet overlooked field in education which is wasting energy of students on underutilizing their energy on playing rather than creating.
The field is approachable to even students who do not have background in computer sciences through learning of various simple programming languages like PhP, Python or Java. Moreover, various universities in Pakistan and online educational hubs like Khan Academy, Edx now offer courses and degrees in this field with international diplomas and degrees which makes it even more accessible to young students.
5. STEM Educationist
With increasing dependence of Knowledge Economies on technology and technical subjects, there will be a rise in demand for pedagogy specialists who can provide integrated approach to education instead of specific subjects. Several schools in Finland, Sweden and US are establishing fully immerse STEM schools that requires different level of expertise to education. Students who have a knack for teaching profession can aim for Bachelors in Education (B. Ed) or specialization in main subjects of STEM i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics. In Pakistan, government is already in process of implementing STEM education in selected public schools for pilot study and with competitive pay structure for STEM teachers, this is an attractive and futuristic field of study for interested youngsters.
Read more: Emergence of STEM education in Pakistan
6. Multimedia Arts and Architects
Like other professional arenas, field of Arts is also influenced greatly by the advent of technological era. Multimedia arts is now reaching new dimensions with jobs emerging for 3-D animators, video production specialists, website designers, and visual artists. The arts students learn software to draw, sketch, model, animate Computer-generated imageries (CGIs), special effects, Computer-Aided Designs (CADs) and many more products. Graphic designers are seeing a rise in their demand for using software like Adobe InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash and or construction tools to construct set models or read blueprints.
Another interesting field that now provides opportunities for artists using technology includes aerospace and automotive industries. These industries provide employment for creating prototypes, concepts for demonstration, build 3-D renderings and animation of transmission assemblies or engines, sequence of vehicles etc.
7. Renewable Energy Engineering
Renewable energy is already a growing sector in Pakistan and abroad with more focus on green energy and ways to reduce hazardous emissions. The government of Pakistan has recently set an aggressive target of increasing share of renewable energy in country to 30% of total energy production. The future for renewable energy engineers is very bright given the extensive research that is ongoing in the current field and with population on rise, this trend will further continue. There is a global shortage of professionals in this field and despite the demand, it is still an overlooked field in Pakistan. In Pakistan only a limited institutes like UET, NED and Pakistan Renewable Academy (PRA) provides degrees in this regard. However, given the global demand, this is a high paid, high end and environmentally contributing job that children can aim at.
8. Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning Specialists
Despite the negative connotations from movies about the Artificial Intelligence, AI tech is leaving great and positive impact on our lives and will continue to do so. An AI engineer is someone who can teach machines how to act human with evaluating challenges and can design possible solutions to perform required actions with more consistency, reliability and efficiency. Like it or not, AI is taking over several roles in various fields from data processing to business solutions, financial decisions, online games, apps, robotics, retailing, accounting and much more. But that does not mean it will replace human resource as a whole.
The Machine Learning algorithms for AI are designed by humans that have basic software engineering skills and good analytical skills. It is an excellent field for children having aptitude for problem solving, programming, statistics, data modelling and evaluation. Another good thing about the profession is that its demand will remain high in future. Moreover, the application of AI is so vast and encompasses so many variety of fields; from business to finance, medicine, gaming, retail and media, that it is open to students from innumerable fields. The pay scale for AI will remain among top ten occupations in next several decades which makes it an attractive and creative field.
Whether children have a knack for technology, science or arts and literature, technical education will remain forefront of every innovation. Parents need to introduce STEM in early childhood to develop technical skills in one form or another. It is important to prepare children for jobs that are bound to emerge in future.
