a little bit smug
People make major decisions about their lives for the wrong reasons, I think. This leads to bigger problems than just the individuals involved. To whit:
High-tech students feel pinch of slump
Waterloo unable to find jobs for all in vaunted program
The world is not well served by everyone becoming a computer engineer or programmer. That's not to say they aren't useful—they are. But when you look around and everybody is signing themselves up for a few narrow fields, little warning bells should go off in your head. This isn't the path to wealth and riches.
Say you're a farmer. You're just starting out. For whatever reason, right now everybody wants apples. Look around: all your farmer buddies are growing orchards to meet the demand. The farmers who had the foresight to plant apple trees a years ago are making out like bandits. Even the crappiest apples are selling like crazy. Allocating your land to make apples seems like a brilliant move. How can you go wrong?
The problem is everybody's doing it. And maybe the apple thing was just a passing fancy. It takes years to grow a tree that will bear fruit. By that time, there will be more than enough apples to meet the demand.
That's how the market works. Competitive markets hate profits. You may get a temporary winfall when things change in your favour, but people are quick to notice you're making money and rush in to get a piece of the pie, as it were.
I could see the signs when I was in school. People congratulated me on getting into such a hot field, but I never expected to be making $100,000 after graduation. I heard people saying how they'd take off to the US merely because making a measly CDN$ 60,000/year just wasn't good enough. That still makes me angry, but I find some small consolation in the fact that those people are now likely very screwed, if they're not already back in Toronto peddling their resumé.
The reason why I put myself through the hell that is university was because I really like this stuff. It's interesting. I want to be able to do what I like, where I like and make a living at it. That's all.
Would I turn down fabulous wealth, if I happen to be that guy who lucked out and planted the right seeds at the right time? No. Would I go looking for something like that? Maybe, if it seemed like an opportunity to do interesting new things. Am I going to follow the herd, just because because somebody's dangling a carrot in front of it? No.
Good advice for anybody: do what you like. If you're motivated and innovative enough, you can make a living doing practically anything.