Your Future Job: Building a Career in the New Normal

What is a job? Should you go to college? What should you major in? How can you build a career if you don’t go to college? Why is today’s job market so different from the past? Should you take out student loans? Starting a career today is more difficult than it was even ten years ago. The economy has changed; we live in the New Normal. What has changed? How can you plan your future? If you’re ambitious, then you and your parents should read this book. It won’t tell you what career to choose, but it will tell you how to succeed in the New Normal. Nobody can predict the future, but you know more about your own future than anybody else. Save Money Now. Be good at what you do. Computers have a better memory than you do; Computers can do math better than you can. Whatever can be automated eventually will be automated. If you’re doing something hard and not succeeding, you can either try harder, or do something easier. Often, the best choice is to do something easier.

Daniel Jelski is a professor of chemistry at SUNY New Paltz, previously serving as dean of science & engineering. A native of Oregon, Dan spent part of his high school years in his father's home town, Berlin, Germany. In 1996, Dan and his family (wife Valerie and two children) spent a year in Kampala, Uganda, where he taught chemistry at Makerere University.

Thomas F. George is chancellor and professor of chemistry and physics at the University of Missouri St. Louis. He holds a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from Gettysburg College (chemistry and mathematics) and MS and PhD degrees from Yale University (chemistry), with postdoctoral appointments at MIT and UC, Berkeley. Along with his wife, Barbara Harbach, Tom is an accomplished musician.