Today’s high school students face an uncertain road ahead. AI is changing what skills are valued in the job market, and the Trump administration’s funding cuts have stalled scientific research across disciplines. Most professions seem unlikely to look the same in 10 years, let alone 50. Even students interested in STEM subjects are asking: What can my career look like, and how do I get there?

WIRED talked to five high school seniors from across the country about their interest in STEM—and how they’re making sense of the future.

These comments have been edited for length and clarity.

This Generation Needs to Be at the Forefront of AI Development

I’ve always had an interest in computer science, but my interest in AI started my junior year. The part that hooked me was how applicable it was to our daily lives. I was able to see the rise of ChatGPT and other LLMs, and how people were using them in my academic life. Some people would use it unethically on tests or assignments, but it could also be used to create practice problems. Being able to see how rapidly it’s evolving in front of me was the main reason I became interested. It’s affecting our academic life so much that it’s imperative that we’re at the forefront of how it’s being developed.

My school is a math and science academy, so I got to explore independent research related to LLMs. One of the main things I worked on was how LLMs can sometimes indirectly give out private data. Say you ask it to code something for you that requires an API key, which is sensitive information. Because it’s trained on a vast amount of data, it could have an API key in its data set, and it’ll give you code, possibly including the API key. My most accomplished research project was developing an algorithm to cut out those private pieces of data during its training, to allow it not to spew out these pieces of private data during use.

AI is such a new field that’s evolving, that if we’re able to set roots in it right now, we’d be able to see that outcome as we grow older. Understanding its security is very important to me, especially considering it’s being used almost blindly by everyone. What interests me is being at the forefront and making sure I can have some say in how my data is being used.

I’m applying to undergrad programs right now, and I’m also looking at some untraditional routes, where you go straight into an industry. Right now, in computer science, sometimes a degree is just a baseline, and if you have the skills, it’s not even necessary. So I’m looking into other options. —Laksh Patel, 17, Willowbrook, Illinois

Health Care Access Starts With Communities

My family, on both sides, has a long history of women developing neurodegenerative disease, mostly Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. So I spent my whole childhood playing doctor, treating my family matriarchs, tending to them and seeing how their diseases progressed. I became so interested in how these diseases worked, and how I could help patients like the ones in my family and my community who didn’t have access to medical resources because of their income.

I’ve really developed a love for patient care, for being able to help a person in such a debilitating time in their lives. As those female family members began to fade away and pass on, I realized how quickly these diseases spread and why they were so detrimental, especially without proper medicine. When I got into high school, I started to get oriented with research, so that I could gain a base level of understanding to bring to college to try to begin my career as early as possible and help more people.

AT&T has announced it has completed its first Open RAN call using third-party radios over its commercial network.

AT&T first revealed its plan to modernise its wireless network almost two years ago, as part of a $14bn deal with Ericsson, described at the time as “industry-defining” and marking a “pivotal milestone” for the Open RAN industry.

Under the terms of the deal, the Swedish comms tech company agreed to build a 5G network platform for AT&T, deploying a range of its 5G Open Radio Access Networks products and supporting the US operator’s nationwide Open RAN ambitions.

The deal is centred on creating an open programmable network that will enable AT&T to accelerate the commercial introduction of Open RAN equipment and open network management services from multiple suppliers, using purpose-built hardware and virtualised commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.

The collaboration also sees the operator using cloud-native technologies built on O-RAN standardised interfaces – with what Ericsson said will have industry scale, cost efficiency, sustainability and high-performance top of mind. Over time, AT&T and Ericsson will transform this to a cloud-native open network.

The Ericsson offerings include massive MIMO and remote radios that are hardware-ready for the next generation of open fronthaul technologies. These radios are designed to lead to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) through their reduced weight, size and power consumption.

AT&T has just announced that to date, it has already completed nearly 40% of the overall swap programme from Nokia radios to Ericsson, and that it has added mid-band (N77) spectrum to over 15,000 sites, which it says deliver increased speeds and a “greatly improved” wireless experience for its customers. The programme was completed in collaboration with Ericsson and Fujitsu subsidiary 1Finity.

In August 2025, AT&T announced the successful completion of the first Open RAN call using third-party radios at its Labs facility, also in collaboration with Ericsson and 1Finity, and has now made the first Open RAN call using third-party radios over its commercial network.

AT&T described the move as a testament to the hard work and dedication of its teams. It stressed that the achievement was not just a technical milestone, but instead a clear signal that the future of wireless will be open, agile and innovation-driven.

Furthermore, it noted that the multi-vendor offering demonstrated the interoperability and flexibility Open RAN brings to its network, underscoring the critical role of collaboration in developing open and programmable networks that can transform the industry.

“Open RAN is more than a technology shift – it’s a catalyst for innovation and collaboration across the industry,” added Patrik Eriksson, vice-president and head of the mobile system business unit at 1Finity. “By proving multi-vendor interoperability on AT&T’s commercial network, we’re not just advancing technology – we’re shaping an ecosystem that will accelerate innovation for our customers and the entire industry.

“This is a significant milestone for the industrialisation of Open RAN, with the 1Finity radio operating with fully commercialised Ericsson software in the AT&T Network,” said Paul Challoner, vice-president and chief technology officer of the customer unit for AT&T at Ericsson.

“The 1Finity radios are integrated into Ericsson’s Intelligent Automation Platform, its Open RAN management and automation platform, which enables multi-vendor radio support. It is a great proof point for Open RAN ecosystem collaboration.”