The panic is real. Thousands and thousands of people are losing their jobs, entire agencies are shuttering and their property being sold off, contracts for funding are not being honored, and jobs in international humanitarian development and foreign relations are being eliminated.

In addition to the lives being upended and the financial hardships on both those working in the sectors and those served by such, there are many thousands of young people who are studying at the university level for careers in international humanitarian development and foreign relations – and they are panicked.

Here’s some advice for those affected by the cuts:

As I was in year three of my journalism degree back in the late 1980s, newspapers started being consolidated. There were far, far fewer jobs for journalists than there were when I started the degree. And “life time” jobs were ending: I’d never expected to have one job for life, or even one job for many years. But I started to panic about the changing job landscape. I wondered if I’d made a horrible mistake in my major.

I started exploring other careers, and realized, via an internship my senior year, that I really loved nonprofit marketing far more than journalism. So I stuck with the major, but in terms of my job search, I pivoted. I ended up in a much more satisfying career, one that VERY much appreciated my journalism degree, and one where I used what I learned in getting that degree over and over and over.

I still use that journalism degree in my work. I still leverage it.

The pundits were, indeed, correct in their predictions: newspapers are now few and far between. Sources for news, curated and written by professional reporters, are so, so fewer than even 10 years ago, let alone 40 years ago. And the pundits were right on another front: I have never had the same job for more than four years.

But there is a difference between newspapers and humanitarian development, as well as foreign relations: if there is a need for humanitarian assistance, then there will be jobs in humanitarian assistance. And if there is a need for foreign relations, there will be jobs in foreign relations. And I believe both of those needs will always exist. It’s going to take time, however: it’s going to take things to get really, really awful. There’s going to be a great deal of harm and death before people realize we either ALL sink or swim.

I have a Master’s in International Development. I worked for years in that field and loved it. But now I’m working for a small nonprofit in rural Oregon, and the things I learned in this degree, as well as what I learned on the job internationally, still deliver for me, hugely. Turns out rural Afghanistan and rural Oregon have a lot more in common than you might think.

Yes, right now, the humanitarian job sector is drastically shrinking. The foreign affairs job sector is also drastically shrinking. But the need is not. The need is, in fact, increasing. Eventually, the sectors will start expanding again, because people, even for-profit businesses, will start needing the services of such, and realize AI cannot do it: AI cannot convince rural farmers to stop growing poppies, or convince women to change a traditional but dangerous baby-rearing practice, or train government workers in how to build trust with their constituencies, or manage a refugee camp effectively. AI cannot humanely negotiate nor manage anything.

There are no guarantees for international development jobs with one particular degree. There are no guarantees for any jobs with any particular degree. So quit stressing over which degree to choose. My advice for the last few decades remains the same: study a subject because you love it and want to immerse yourself in it, because you want to be all but married to it. And then find a way to leverage that degree when you graduate.

The key to job success is flexibility and adaption. It’s been this way for the last few decades. And you may end up working in a field that, at least initially, doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with the field you studied. But I have to say: I sure know a lot more successful, fully employed folks who majored in theater or music – even if they aren’t working in those fields – than I do people who majored in some aspect of computer science.

And as for AI, sure, learn to use it edit emails and reports – but then re-read that email and report carefully, because AI constantly, regularly messes things up. AI is, and will remain, lousy at compiling accurate information, because of the volumes of misinformation online. Being able to identify accurate remains a human strength, as does building trust with others and creating things that are unique and original.

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