Pack Your Schedule or Sharpen Your Positioning? Skills High School Students Can Develop in the Age of AI

by Melissa Carleton

Having recently completed my PhD in Economics at Princeton University, I am often approached by parents and guardians of middle or high school students who share a common concern. When AI compresses the value of skills that were once highly coveted, parents struggle to understand how they can guide their kids toward a successful or stable future.

In this article, I address the following question: what skills do young people actually need to develop in the age of AI? As a college degree no longer guarantees a full-time job after graduation, high school students and their families wonder how to prepare for an uncertain future.

When almost anyone can set up a website or start a business within a few hours, it’s hard to know what skills remain useful. For example, it’s unclear if majoring in Computer Science is a good choice. On the one hand, understanding how code is structured can help individuals understand how AI is evolving in our society. On the other hand, learning how to code fast may be less useful when AI can complete coding tasks instantly.

It’s also unclear whether the answer to this question will change in five to ten years. With so many implied tradeoffs that did not exist five years ago, it’s challenging to know what will actually work.

I argue that in today’s economy, high school students can develop two core skills to prepare for the future. The first skill is articulating how you add value, with demonstrable skills and experience to back it up. The second skill is learning how to ask the right questions and spot opportunities in a setting with shifting variables.

In a world that seems to be getting more competitive each year, it’s tempting for young people to think that signing up for more AP courses or internships will do the trick. Unfortunately, this approach can leave individuals burnt out and stressed, overlooking the economics of what truly matters.

Increasingly, as companies, organizations, and individuals race to get ahead of their competitors, they rely less on credentials and more on demonstrated ability to solve problems. In this article, I will outline concrete steps high school students can take to start developing the two core skills I have mentioned to position themselves for a successful future based on what the changing economic times demand of them.

Communicating Value and Outcomes Over Credentials

The first core skill that I mentioned is articulating what you do, who you serve, and how you add value, while crafting a portfolio that demonstrates you can do what you claim. The key to doing this is learning how to create a personal narrative. A personal narrative is what people first think of when they think of you.

As a disclaimer, I am not arguing that high school students need to commit to a single polished narrative for the long term. Thinking, growth, and exploration are critical. It's important that students explore options and think carefully before overcommitting to any one path.

However, what I am arguing for is that, instead of encouraging young people to study harder or add more activities to their increasingly filled-up plate, they can get more mileage from developing the skill now of crafting a coherent personal narrative and “pitching it” in low-stakes settings. This skill will come in handy later when they’re networking or searching for career opportunities later.

For example, a student may have a budding interest in climate tech. What sequence of action should they take to learn the basics in this area, demonstrate they can solve real problems, and communicate all this to others?

First, they can start by gaining knowledge in the area. This could involve watching videos, reading articles, reading relevant social media posts, or researching where startup funds are moving in this sector to identify which areas are growing.

Second, they can demonstrate skills in this area by solving a problem. After learning more about the field, they might develop a sense of what problems they can help solve. For instance, they could gather data on energy usage in their city and figure out whether more efficient ways of energy management exist. When students are still in high school, finding volunteer or smaller opportunities related to this area will suffice. If they want to take it a step further, they could search for relevant internships or job opportunities in this area.

The third step, one that’s particularly unique to the age of AI, is clearly communicating what you do with an enduring message. AI slop is filling our social media feeds, making it all the more important in this crowded environment that humans stand out. If this student can spend a few hours a week writing about their interest on a Substack page, people will remember their insights.

Even if they don’t necessarily pursue a career in climate tech later, they'll have developed the skill of communicating that they can solve tangible problems, which can compound any career.

In some ways, the idea of developing a personal narrative to gain educational or career advantages is not new or unique to the age of AI. In the article "How to Get into Harvard" by Allen Cheng, written over a decade ago, Cheng makes the case for focused effort.

He asserts that the passionate student who takes a few science AP classes and wins a national science competition is more likely to get into Harvard than the tired student who takes many random AP classes while participating in sports and playing several instruments. This is because the first student’s narrative illustrates a clear picture of an individual who is passionate and committed to science, while the second student does not stand out among the crowd.

I don't believe that gaining admission to Harvard should be the singular goal of today's high school students, and neither does Cheng. I would also add that in the AI age, deciding whether to apply to traditionally prestigious colleges is a question worth exploring and not one that I address in this article. The advice in the present article is meant to help students prepare for the future, no matter their educational goals.

However, his broader point remains that communicating a clear thesis of what you do is a powerful way to position yourself in your field. Work in the area of attention economics supports this idea.

In the field of economics, researchers have studied the idea of rational inattention. The human brain cannot process too much information at once, so it becomes rational to focus on only a subset of signals. Accordingly, it may be more productive for them to learn how to clearly develop and articulate their experiences in an area of interest rather than filling their plates with additional activities.

As AI assists more students with application processes, leading to a flood of applications in any given area, students can cut through the noise if they move beyond common labels. Thousands of students may be interested in Model UN or running, but a student interested in climate tech who prototyped an energy-efficient solution for their city is far more likely to stand out.

One may wonder, if students become increasingly sophisticated in framing themselves, how will evaluation committees distinguish between them? Currently, I do not believe that the majority of high school students have internalized this skill. However, if we reach this point, students who follow the steps of doing their research and demonstrating their experience will stand out when finding aligned opportunities, as you can’t fake real work.

Scoping out Opportunities and Asking Questions

As job opportunities in several sectors shrink, individuals often find that they've prepared themselves for careers that are waning out of existence. For instance, entry-level data science jobs are increasingly hard to find as senior data scientists leverage AI for tasks they used to give to juniors. Given this changing landscape, it's critical that students develop the skill of scoping out the right opportunities.

A recent article in Inc. mentions that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, says the most important skill for kids to develop in an AI era is not crystallized intelligence, emotional intelligence, or adaptability. Instead, it's knowing how to ask the right questions. That may be easy for an AI giant to say, but it’s hard to know what this advice practically means for how high schoolers should think about developing essential career skills.

I would summarize this skill as asking questions to assess where opportunities are being created. For instance, if a startup recently raised a Series A or Series B funding round, the founders may begin looking to hire more employees. Individuals can think ahead and contact the founders to inquire about open roles before these roles are posted publicly on the startup’s “Careers” page. As a result, they can bypass the traditional applicant pool containing hundreds of applications that are screened by AI.

If you are a high school student, there are a few practical steps you can take to begin developing this muscle. Make it a point to talk to individuals in your given field of interest. Many college students are excited to share their internship experiences with ambitious high school students. Ask them about business challenges they’ve encountered in their role and how they contributed towards developing solutions. If you do this enough times, you'll develop a better intuition for how organizations solve problems.

As you continue to develop an area of interest and communicate it well, you'll naturally have other individuals ask you questions about this area. The more you engage with others on these topics, the more you'll learn how to communicate insights in a way that engages a broad range of audiences.

Moreover, employment opportunities tend to flow to where decision makers identify key problems. According to the NVCA, employment grew 960% from 1990 to 2020 at VC-backed companies: a pace eight times higher than non-VC-backed companies. According to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, between 2018 and 2022, VC-backed companies accounted for just .2% of US firms but employed 12.5% of the US workforce.

If high school students can engage in problem-solving discussions with others and begin to explore where venture funding is moving (see KPMG Venture Insights cited below), they'll develop an early edge. Later in their career, a job opportunity may be one direct message away from a founder operating in one of these sectors.

Concluding Thoughts

During a time of technological change and economic uncertainty, it’s often hard for high school students to discern which skills will pay off later. It used to be that a degree from a prestigious university could open doors in several arenas. However, in today’s economy of rapid innovation and scarce attention, the skills of demonstrating your problem-solving skills and asking the right questions are proving far more important.

I should also mention that any article providing high schoolers with tips on how to prepare for the future is often met with controversy. Many argue that high schoolers should dream, play, and explore. I often hear adults who grew up before the 20th century say that back then, they didn't have to worry about so much.

However, we live in a society where every milestone, such as purchasing a home, is becoming harder. AI-related shifts are already introducing unprecedented economic disruption. It's more important than ever that we help young individuals develop the skills they need to secure a livable future.

I hope that the approach I outline encourages high schoolers to develop their creativity and inherent interests rather than diminish them. With only a couple of hours a week, they can make meaningful steps and progress towards these goals rather than burning out while chasing activities that fill a resume but add little signal value. Moreover, the increasing reliance on problem-solving ability over credentials may encourage more innovation rather than resume-optimizing.

Though high school life won’t likely return to the more relaxed pace of the 20th century, I hope the approach I outlined in this article is more sustainable than the “get-into-Harvard-hustle-culture” that dominated the 2010s before non-traditional paths became more normalized.

Finally, the problem of changing and diminishing career opportunities is not a problem that high schoolers and their families should bear the responsibility of solving. As I've argued in previous articles, it's on governments, educational institutions, and our wider society to assist individuals caught in the transition.

In the meantime, as AI giants build technology and give vague advice on how to adapt, the least I can do is provide a few concrete suggestions to help high schoolers and their families navigate the current situation with more confidence.

Works Cited:

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Carleton, Melissa. “Trillionaires and Layoffs? An Approach to Redistribute Companies’ AI-Related Wealth.” The Honest Economist, February 5, 2026. https://www.honesteconomist.com/column/ai-wealth-redistribution.

Carleton, Melissa. “Will Technological Change Make the Degree Irrelevant? It’s Up to Colleges to Decide.” The Honest Economist, October 23, 2025. https://www.honesteconomist.com/column/collegedegreerelevance.

Cheng, Allen. “How to Get into Harvard and the Ivy League.” PrepScholar Blog. https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-into-harvard-and-the-ivy-league-by-a-harvard-alum.

Fang, Sabrina. “Employment at U.S. VC-Backed Companies Grew 960% from 1990 to 2020, 8x Compared to Non-VC-Backed Companies.” National Venture Capital Association. https://nvca.org/press_releases/employment-at-u-s-vc-backed-companies-grew-960-from-1990-to-2020-8x-compared-to-non-vc-backed-companies.

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Li, Jasmine. “For College Applicants, Pressure to Make Summers Count Has Gotten Even Worse.” Wall Street Journal, February 16, 2026. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-admissions-summer-resume-activities-high-school-d2bfe312.

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Stillman, Jessica. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says This Will Be the No. 1 Most Valuable Skill in the Age of AI.” Inc., January 17, 2025.https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/openai-ceo-sam-altman-says-this-will-be-the-no-1-most-valuable-skill-in-the-age-of-ai/91107542.