Today’s high school students face an uncertain path. Artificial intelligence is changing the skills valued in the labor market, and the Trump administration’s funding cuts have stunted research across disciplines. It seems unlikely that most jobs will look the same in 10 years, let alone 50. Even students interested in STEM subjects are asking: What might my career look like and how can I get there?
WIRED spoke with five high school seniors from across the country about their interest in STEM and how they see the future.
These comments have been edited for length and clarity.
This generation must lead the development of artificial intelligence
I have always been interested in computer science, but I became interested in artificial intelligence during my first year of studies. What intrigued me the most was how applicable it was to our everyday lives. I have seen the development of ChatGPT and other LLMs and how people have used them in my academic life. Some people would employ it unethically during tests or assignments, but it can also be used to create practice problems. The main reason I was interested was to see how quickly it was evolving in front of me. This has such a profound impact on our academic lives that it is imperative that we lead the way in its development.
My school is a maths and science academy, so I had to explore independent research related to LLM. One of the main things I worked on was how LLM companies can sometimes indirectly share private data. Let’s say you’re asking to encode something that requires an API key, which is sensitive information. Since it is trained on a huge amount of data, it can have the API key in its dataset and gives you code, possibly containing the API key. My most successful research project was developing an algorithm that cuts out private pieces of data during training so as not to throw them out during employ.
Artificial intelligence is such a fresh and evolving field that if we can embed ourselves in it now, we could see its results as we age. Understanding its security is very critical to me, especially considering that everyone uses it almost blindly. I’m interested in being at the forefront and making sure I can influence how my data is used.
I’m currently applying to bachelor’s degrees and also considering several non-traditional paths that lead directly into the industry. Nowadays, in IT, sometimes a diploma is just the basis, and if you have the skills, it is not even necessary. That’s why I’m considering other options. —Laksh Patel, 17, Willowbrook, Illinois
Access to health care starts with the community
In my family, on both sides, women have long been affected by neurodegenerative diseases, mainly Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. That’s why I spent my entire childhood playing doctor, treating the matrons of my family, taking care of them and observing the progression of their diseases. I became very interested in how these diseases worked and how I could facilitate patients like my family and community members who did not have access to medical resources due to their income.
I truly loved patient care and being able to facilitate a person at such a devastating time in their life. As these female family members began to fade and pass away, I realized how quickly these diseases spread and why they are so harmful, especially without proper treatment. When I entered high school, I began to focus on research so that I could gain a basic level of knowledge that I could employ in college to start my career early and facilitate more people.