Changes in the job market due to artificial intelligence (AI) have significant implications for high school students planning their careers.
For one Wake County high school senior, he’s using a craft of the past to carve out his future.
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“I’m not limited to one kind of carving,” Johnson said.
With every chop, Johnson is following the groove.
“I think it teaches you a lot about how adaptable you really are,” he said.
The Wakefield High School student displays his work on a plastic folding table on a Saturday afternoon. He displays décor like bowls, a cross, and spoons he’s crafted by hand.
But he also has more intricate pieces, such as a set of interlocking wooden wedding rings and a wooden ball in a cage, both carved from single pieces of wood.
"He's built this bread bowl, the old-fashioned kind. A vase, projects for other people that they've asked for," his mom, Stephanie Johnson, said.
It all started with an interest he took after joining the Boy Scouts when he was about 13.
"From there, I would go online and look for more things to carve because it was exciting," Nick Johnson said.
On his Instagram, you’ll see his woodworking business is growing, and so are his skills.
He started carving for customers a couple of years ago, and so far, he has sold about $2,000 worth of pieces. He used those funds to buy a piece of equipment called a laithe.
More recently, the carpentry classes he's taken in school have only expanded his skillset. Last spring, students in agriculture classes brought him and his classmates in Patrick Craner's Career and Technical Education class a concept for a pergola created through ChatGPT.
"The ChatGPT design had boards phasing in and out of existence. It wasn't a fully thought-out plan. It was a unique challenge because I've never had to make blueprints before. I was able to take something that was just a thought and turn it into reality." Johnson said.
After he and his classmates built the one at the school, Nick built one for his mom over the summer.
"To sit under something like a pergola and look up and see this structure that he built is very, very special," his mother said.
But amid the changing labor force, Nick contemplates his college plans.
Data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that trade job openings will grow in the next few years. Meanwhile, AI could lead to the decline of white-collar jobs.
"AI is not going to come fix your HVAC or your dishwasher or anything like that," Craner said.
For now, Johnson plans to pursue a degree in business after graduating from high school. He said he's still figuring out the details, but plans for his craft to be a part of it.
"It's such an exciting, empowering experience to enjoy something and make something of it," Johnson said.