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Comment by nitwit005 | Hacker News Reader

No one succeeds in making accurate predictions of the future over a 40 year time scale. Look back at the 20th century, and see the range of range of events, and the kind of technological change, that could occur in a span that long.

Go into things expecting you might have to change careers.

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Freeman Dyson said no scientific (or, I think, technological) project should last more than about five years, because the context under which it was conceived changes too much in that time.

> No one succeeds in making accurate predictions of the future over a 40 year time scale.

The sports analogy holds; the future location of the ball may be uncertain, but that is the student's target, and not overcommitting to the present location of the ball. The commenter is expressing disappointment that the commentary seems to be reacting to the present too much.

Science was quite stable in terms of how it works over the last 100 years.

Sure you wouldn’t predict what you would work on exactly. And there were better tools, better communication and so on sure, but no disruptive innovations or seismic shifts really.

> accurate predictions of the future over a 40 year time scale

I think the problem is the reverse. We no longer can make good predictions for four years ahead, certainly not eight.

And yet, people have to make choices - so they need advice and some kind of hope of a guess.

> you might have to change careers.

I hope this is some dust dry humor!

I remember talking to an admissions tutor at Cambridge and he said even there most applicants had no idea what they wanted to do for a career. They just drifted into whatever came up.

In the UK only about 30-40% of students end up working in an area related to their degree.

The people who have a realistic plan that works out for them are a minority.

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