STEM careers are not a good idea. For many reasons. I suggest that people become bricklayers, plumbers, or electricians.
I disagree with the first sentence, but I agree with the second sentence. I suggest people pick a career before picking college or voc training school. Ask people already in that career what the average day is like, what realistic money can be made, and what it takes to get there (i.e. training, work hours per week, how much off-work hours you have to spend keeping up, etc.). The people already working in that field know more than the college advisors in the academic industry.
And if you like it, be it STEM or blue collar or whatever, then go down the path they suggest. Get the training that they, not the college advisors, say is worth real value. If that's college, fine, go to the colleges the real workers in that field suggest and get a degree in their suggested major.
I did some of that in my 20’s.
Very hard to do it beyond 55 as the body just won’t cooperate.
I got into electronics in my late 20’s.
Best decision of my life.
STEM is good if the jobs were open to Americans. Sadly, with 99% of the recruiters now Indian, they are not.