In this Youth Career Readiness podcast episode, hosts Michael Horn and Jean Eddy interview economist and Brown professor Emily Oster about how young people can make informed career choices. Oster argues that the most valuable "data" for students is understanding the day‑to‑day tasks of a job rather than abstract statistics about education requirements, salary, or demographics. She urges students of all ages to seek hands‑on experiences—internships, short‑term work, job‑shadowing, or even a single day at a workplace—to collect this experiential data. By directly observing what people actually do each day, students can better assess whether a career will be enjoyable and fulfilling. Oster emphasizes that the goal is to find a job where most days feel rewarding, not necessarily a perfect fit every single day. The conversation concludes with practical suggestions for middle‑ and high‑school students to engage with real‑world work environments as a way to explore career options.
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Welcome to youth career readiness, the one question podcast.
I'm Jean Eddy.
And I'm Michael Horne.
And this is the podcast where we talk to people across careers about their professional journeys and what advice they would.
Offer to help all middle and high schoolers explore, experiment with, and discover careers.
Today, we're delighted to have Emily Ostrid join us. Emily is an economist who is a professor at Brown University. She's the founder of Parent Data, which is a data driven guide from pregnancy to parenthood and beyond with hundreds of helpful articles. Emily hosts podcasts including her latest, Raising Parents with Emily Oster. And she's a best selling author with four books to her name. Expecting Better Crib Sheet, the Family Firm and the Unexpected. This is going to be a fun one, Michael.
No doubt, Gene. And whenever I get to talk to Emily, I feel like I learned something new. It helps me reframe things. And so, Emily, welcome. It is so good to see you and I am dying to ask you this question. We can find data in lots of different places and lots of different forms. Data obviously is your specialty and passion. So for those advising kids on learning about, exploring and ultimately pursuing careers, what are the data or the signals that you recommend they pay attention to? Is there a process you recommend to help them learn about the fast changing world of careers?
Hi, Jean and Michael. Thank you so much for having me. I think the most important piece of data or information that our kids need to collect to think about what kind of jobs they might want are, are what do you do every day at that job? When we give advice to kids, we tend to talk in generalities. What kind of education do you need for that job? What kind of income does that job make? What kind of people do this job? What does it look like in a sort of general sense? But when you experience a job, what you're experiencing is the job. Doing the things that you do every single day. And without knowing what that's like in, it's actually really difficult to consider what kind of job you want to have. So when I talk to kids or when you talk to kids about how they think about their job options, I'd really encourage them to try the job. And I encourage this for little kids, for medium sized kids, for older kids. When I talk to my graduate students about what kind of job they want, I say, hey, you should try doing that job. Do that job for the summer. Do, do that job for a year. Think about, do you actually like being there? Because ultimately what you want to have in your career is a job where you look forward to going to it most days. Nobody looks forward to going every day. But you want to have a job where most of the days you enjoy what you're doing day to day. From the standpoint of advice to middle school and high school kids, there's a lot of ways they can actually learn about jobs. One is internships. Another is even spending a day or two at an office or at a work site, or in some way engaging with what do people who do this job every day do? And if all they can do is talk to people, at least try talking to people. Not about how did you get to where you are. Not about what kind of money do you make, but really about what do you do every day, because that's the piece of data you need to know to figure out if this job is right for you.
And that's all we've got on the Youth Career Readiness the One Question podcast.
Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next time for more tips and and insights.
