Quantifying Passion

Isabel Yu

Through this assignment, I wanted to truly capture the way that the stress of finding a steady paying job affects students’ choices today. This pressure can cause individuals to steer away from their true passions in order to make a livable wage. I asked a few peers the same question: “How much of a role does your potential income play in your academic decisions thus far?” I know it is a loaded question, so I was curious about how much people would be willing to share with me. Personally, I struggled a lot through the college decision process and I constantly felt like I was pressured to figure out the next ten years of my life before even stepping onto campus. Most of that pressure came from my parents, while I wish they just supported me at this exciting time of my life where I can keep trying new things and not be afraid of failure sometimes. They were only worried about what my experiences in college will equate to in the “real world”. 

Some students seemed to have a better grasp than others on what they are currently working towards. My roommate for example is set on her future in the field of Psychology. She understands the costs of her undergraduate and graduate education and it definitely influenced her undergrad university decision, but she is looking at the big picture. “I know that if I’m successful in the field, eventually I will be making a steady income that will hopefully allow me to live the life I want for myself and my future family. So yeah, though income isn’t everything, it is a huge motivator to be persistent in my studies and create a career path for myself both doing what I love and being successful in it.” 

The simpler response I received from the majority of students was along the lines of “I wish it didn’t play a huge role, but I have to admit it does”. It is inevitable that when picking a major, we try to line up a realistic career for ourselves to get to and we forget that there are so many jobs that we may not think of because they don’t even exist yet. What would our futures look like if we just followed our passions while we are young and not have to worry about the salaries we need to secure to pay off our student debt? Sydney answered my overarching question by explaining, “It definitely plays a big role because I think it’s very difficult to find a career path that I want to follow that will also pay liveable wages. It’s ideal to be able to provide for yourself and your family while also enjoying your career and it can be difficult to find a good balance of the two.”

I feel as though our generation has an immense amount of pressure to go through college and be successful in their studied field right away. It is taboo to go off the beaten track and create your own career based on your interests in many cases. The financial burden that college puts on students and families is becoming a bigger and bigger problem to oversee. It makes students feel the need to seek out the fastest option with the highest salary. Some argue that college may not even be worth the sticker price anymore when taking into account the money that could be made in the same time a student were to be in school. We are continuously fostering a society of robots rather than individuals who are passionate about what they wake up and work on every day. I believe that passion is vital to creating change in our world because without it, people grow up and enter the workforce as complacent instead of inspired and ambitious young people. 

Quite frankly, that scares me.