The Engine of The New New Zealand

Many people don't realise that today's stars on animal TV shows aren't just people who've decided to go and hang out with dangerous wild animals - they are usually qualified vets. Being a vet can propel you to stardom, but at the very least you could be saving the lives of animals, every day. Awesome.

Got a creative streak? Project Runway your favourite TV programme? You'll love a career in fashion! It's seen as a glamorous career, so it's a really competitive to get jobs in fashion, and you'll have to work hard, but how cool would it be to have your own label on the catwalk at London Fashion Week, or work for a famous fashion design company?

Whether it's New Zealand's biggest factory or the world's smallest mp3 player, someone had to sit down and figure out how to build it. Everything from roads to rockets has an engineer behind it, so if you're interested in how things are put together - or you think you can do better - becoming an engineer will give you the chance to build something great.

If you take a genuine interest in how people think, act, and react in everyday situations, or if the study of human behaviour, emotions, and interactions interests you, you could make a huge difference in people's lives. If you change just one person's life for the better, you will have had a huge impact on the world.

Dig deeply enough and you'll find numbers underly virtually everything in the universe. If you develop an understanding for the numbers that drive our lives, you'll be able to analyse virtually anything.

Make the things we use in everyday life beautiful and desirable. Create objects that work well and look great.

Being human is about more than having thumbs, an upright posture, and a big brain. Many people throughout history have built careers on trying to understand fundamental questions: Why are we here? Why do we form societies and how do they work? What can we do to make our lives better, today?

Money flows from place to place, just like water. Some people understand what makes that flow work, and their know-how can have an incredible impact on the world of finance - whether it's one person's bank account or the whole country's economy.

Thankfully, we're long past the days when a case of the sniffles almost always meant the end of the line. People don't stay healthy on their own forever though - they need help.

Nothing ever gets built and no job ever gets finished unless people communicate with each other. Not everyone is a great communicator, though, so quite often someone has to step in and translate someone's ideas into something anyone can understand.

The Canterbury Earthquake has made it clearer than ever how vulnerable human infrastructure can be in the face of unforeseen disasters. Between quakes, volcanoes, floods, storms, and tornadoes, there's no shortage of ways for Nature to lash out at us when she's in a bad mood. New Zealand will always need people with the expertise to answer the question 'What do we do now?' after the unthinkable happens.

Life would be pretty dull without art, and art doesn't get made without artists. Whether you want to get involved in performing arts, are interested in the commercial side of something like advertising, or just want to create 'art for art's sake', many paths exist that will allow you to put your creativity to good use.

Every business has people working behind the scenes to make sure day-to-day operations run as efficiently as possible. The first and most important step is managing the most important business resource of all: people.

At the rate humans are consuming today, we'll need 2.5 planet Earths to sustain us by the year 2050. That's a problem. And it's one we need to solve within the next few decades. Help figure out how to design products, communities, and societies that can live within the limits imposed upon us by having only this one Earth to live on.

In 1976, two guys in a garage started Apple. In 2012, it's the most valuable company on Earth. If you've got an idea and the drive to make it happen, you can make a name not just for yourself and your company, but all of New Zealand.

Let's face it: you got where you are today because of teachers. Without them, you might not even know how to read, write, or add up numbers. New Zealand will always need people willing and able to pass those skills on to the next generation of Kiwis.

These careers don't necessarily exist today, but within 10-20 years they might be essential to the future of our society. As technology evolves, our careers must evolve alongside it. Have a look at one of these potential careers of the future.

Most of the things we take for granted today, we have because of scientific progress. Whether it's the electricity that runs your refrigerator, the refrigerator itself, or the food inside it, scientists have been there at every step to work out ways to expand our knowledge and improve our quality of life at the same time.

A career in government could mean anything from being an urban planner for your local city council all the way up to being Prime Minister of New Zealand. At all levels of government, you'll have the power to shape the lives of New Zealanders... perhaps for many generations to come.