Dreamsinbytes@aol.com writes:
> I've been tuning into the list which I must say is quite
> thrilling. I'm now a sophmore in school, and have no clue what I
> want to do with my life. After reading such books like The Age of
> Spiritual Machines etc... how can I possibly know what field to go
> into? Technology is just moving so quickly, and I know I am more
> aware of this than most (not including extropians of course) but how
> can I prepare myself for what is to come?
When I meet the students in Computer Science 101 (or ather, our
version of it) here at the Institute, I point out to them that the
computer languages they will learn in the course will likely be
obsolete before they graduate, the programming paradigm has a good
chance to be different and lots and lots of clever new datastructures
and algorithms will have been discovered while they were busy
studying. So what is the point of it? The point is that they learn to
learn, that they know enough so that they can adapt to new languages,
paradigms and structures when they need them. It is all about
confidence in one's abilities, a solid and broad foundation and
flexible thinking. I guess this holds true for nearly every
subject.
Also, expect to go into several fields during your life. The single
career at a single company is totally dead. I fully expect that within
the next 30-40 years to have spent quite some time in three totally
different occupations. I got my business card labelled 'journalist'
today - so now I have to keep them apart from my cards labelled
'computational neuroscientist'. And that is just the beginning.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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