I lucked into starting very early what I planned on doing in retirement, which is teaching college; as a result I did that for a while with no real life experience. Later, I ended up at the same time starting a company for family-related (but kind of big time) web project.

And while I don't have a problem with career instructors/academics generally, they can be so dramatic. :)

I have no doom and gloom at all for my IT students. Opportunities and crises really are the same thing in the real world; I just tell them, just learn and enjoy learning the tech and keep an eye out for how you can be a problem solver.

You'll be fine.