STEM

One of the big pushes in education is to get students to do well in the STEM areas. That's Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. From my perspective, SE would be enough. That is, if you've got Engineering, that's how you build or support technology. To do either Science or Engineering, you need math. Math turns out to be one of those tools which allows you to solve all sorts of problems. You really can't do without it. Not all students are good at it. In fact, nearly everyone has to struggle with it. Being good at math is, at least to some extent, a measure of how hard one has struggled with it compared to everyone else.

One of the reasons for students to go into science or engineering is that a technological society needs people to do these things to stay competitive with other countries. And if there is a need for a skill, then there are jobs. So, that's good for the student's future.

But just to mention a contrary concept, it turns out that when you go to bigger companies that want engineers, they're also looking for engineers with communications skills. So, it is not a good idea to ignore your natural language skills. That includes reading and writing, but also public speaking. These are good skills to have.