How can a kid prepare for the future?

No, you can’t.

When I was watching a live stream on Facebook this evening, I heard the reporter was asking the chairman of the minister of technology of Taiwan saying that “our kids want to know how to prepare the skills the industries will need after graduation.” I was so mad and upset after hearing this.

No, there’s no way to do that, and no one should do that. Why you are fitting yourself into others’ expectation? How would you succeed if you only do things that “others want”?

Around 8 years ago, I started to learn programming from Will, who was so passionate about Machine Learning studies at that time. I learned how to build my own SVM models from him, and do PCA to downscale the amount of parameters. On the other hand, I even enjoyed more in building up a whole runnable system that improve people’s life. Today, both of us are still doing the same stuffs that we love since then. At CMU, he’s studying Machine Learning PhD, I am doing a Master and build tons of projects that helps people’s life.

So, who can a kid prepare for the future? No, you can’t do that. No one knows how the future will be like, just like 8 years ago, not many people care about Machine Learning, and people didn’t think building a software is more important than the hardware. The skills needed after the graduation may not even exist when the kids starting their freshman year. The best way to solve this is simply to do whatever you love, and be extremely good at it. People hire people that is irreplaceable and professional, not for the people with nothing inside their mind.