“Career” is an unnatural bucket. You don’t pick a career. You choose between concrete actions that lead to other actions. Imagine picking a path through a tree. This model can encompass the notion of a career as a set of similar paths. Your procedure is a good way to estimate the value of these paths, but doesn’t reflect the tree-like structure of actual decisions. In other words, options are important under uncertainty, and the model you’ve listed doesn’t seem to reflect this.
For example, I’m not choosing between (General Infantry) and (Mathematician). I’m choosing between (Enlist in the Military) and (Go to College). Even if the terminal state (General Infantry) had the same expected value as (Mathematician), going to college should more valuable because you will have many options besides (Mathematician) should your initial estimate prove wrong, while enlisting leads to much lower branching factor.
How should you weigh the value of having options? I have no clue.
“Career” is an unnatural bucket. You don’t pick a career. You choose between concrete actions that lead to other actions. Imagine picking a path through a tree. This model can encompass the notion of a career as a set of similar paths. Your procedure is a good way to estimate the value of these paths, but doesn’t reflect the tree-like structure of actual decisions. In other words, options are important under uncertainty, and the model you’ve listed doesn’t seem to reflect this.
For example, I’m not choosing between (General Infantry) and (Mathematician). I’m choosing between (Enlist in the Military) and (Go to College). Even if the terminal state (General Infantry) had the same expected value as (Mathematician), going to college should more valuable because you will have many options besides (Mathematician) should your initial estimate prove wrong, while enlisting leads to much lower branching factor.
How should you weigh the value of having options? I have no clue.