Why Encourage High School Students to Choose Tech Careers?

The tech industry is one of the most rewarding fields for professionals. It not only has great salaries and benefits but students could get the opportunity to help change the world. 

The skills needed for a career in tech can be learned in more than one way, such as in online courses or coding bootcamps, which give different options for students depending on their time and budget. Plus, a good deal of tech positions allows people to work remotely, which many prefer. It could also be interesting for high school students to learn about the devices they use every day. 

High schoolers that gain an interest in tech could end up working for the companies they already know like Facebook, Netflix, or Google. These tech giants are known for their forward work policies, which could be a great option for escaping the nine to five office grind that many young people see when looking at traditional professions. With that said, these are the benefits of choosing a tech career.

High Demand

Because technology is a huge part of our society, the demand for tech professionals is high. In addition, it will only continue to grow in the years to come. In the 4th quarter of 2019, U.S. employers had more than 918,000 unfilled IT jobs. This means a lot of opportunities and not much competition. This is even more true in more technical career fields like Data Science or machine learning. Because the need for tech professionals is so high, many companies hire people without bachelor’s degrees; a professional certification and a good portfolio may be all you need. 

Great Salary

Technical careers are one of the best-paid jobs in the country, even for entry-level professionals. The salaries can be anywhere from $50k to $150K per year. For example, an information security engineer can make $131K per year while a software engineering manager makes $153K per year. Because companies have difficulty finding tech professionals, they want to keep them when they do. This translates to incredible benefits and perks, like pet-friendly offices, unlimited PTO, long parental leave for moms and dads, and so on. Plus, the tech industry has good support for side gigs, so professionals can have several sources of income with different projects. 

Making a Difference

Tech is changing the world and our day to day activities. In the last ten years, the most important discoveries and innovations in the world were tech or science-related. Choosing a tech career path will give you the opportunity to make a real difference in the world, and you don’t have to be a genius to make a difference. 

There is a myth that programmers are born geniuses and learn to hack at 7 years old. But it can’t be further from the truth, anyone can learn to be a software engineer or a web developer. Even for scientific or engineering careers this can be true, all you need is passion and drive. For example, AI tools are being used right now to fight diseases and natural disasters. But other developing technologies will need bright minds to achieve their goals.

Using Creativity

The best part of a career in tech is getting to use creativity to find innovative solutions to problems in society. Programmers have to develop tools to meet the user’s needs, and software engineering is a career where the objective is to find innovative solutions to problems in our lives. So, overall, tech careers are one of the most fulfilling paths in terms of creativity. Even for people who don’t consider themselves creative, the problem-solving skills that experience this industry provides have a creative aspect of their own. 

Room to Grow

Another benefit of choosing a tech career is that the industry has limitless growth. Because new technologies are coming out all the time, tech professionals have to keep updated by learning new skills often.  Employers know this and generally offer opportunities for improvement, like paying for courses and certifications. Plus, because of the lack of tech professionals and high demand, people have plenty of opportunities to quickly advance in their career. So, if a student chooses a tech career they will probably have a leadership position a few years after graduation.