What would you recommend a 16 year old to pursue career wise?

Morph123:

Either a horticulturalist/permaculturist or an industrial electrician.

Both are and will be required skills for the foreseeable future (next 200 years or so).

Knowing how to grow food and maintain a healthy environment is becoming a lost skill. “Grounding” has science now saying it’s a good thing for your blood, heart and brain (don’t have link on hand but when connected to ground scientists have found blood physically changes and can be seen in microscope).

Electricians are usually a licensed trade. This makes it more protected but also makes you more useful.

You can branch into engineering later if you wish, and you usually make for a better engineer cause you know a 630mm^2 cable doesn’t fit in a 20mm gland.

Substation automation based on IEC61850 is everywhere and more common. It consists of servers, gateways, IEDs (which also need programming), Ethernet, VLANS, switches etc. so you get a technology knowledge base you can relate to other areas of yours, or your friends and families life.