Month: June 2012

Starting a PhD program in the fall, I am fully aware that the associated job prospects are poor. It’s a long investment of time, and the skills to be acquired are of interest to only a very few employers who already have a great many applicants and who are mostly losing funding.

Investing in a practical skill seems like a decent risk mitigation strategy. I can keep doing some commercial photography on the side, but that’s another field crowded with amateurs chasing too little work for poor monetary returns.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to become certified as a locksmith. It would be interesting, and I suspect it’s a growth business. I think the future will be full of fear, with people keen to protect what they have from others who will try to take it. The world’s governments also have an unsavoury enthusiasm for completely eliminating individual privacy.

That creates double opportunities for locksmiths, since they have skills demanded by both those trying to keep attackers out and by those determined to break in.