Is ‘Follow Your Passion’ Bad Advice?
Barbara Oakley, author of Pathological Altruism, has a blog post up at Psychology Today entitled “Engineering—The Smart Career Choice for People Who Love Psychology”:
Follow your passion. That’s become the mantra of today’s society. It’s also a potential pitfall.
The issue is that people often have similar underlying passions. This means they flock to the same careers. And this means lots of competition—often for very low level jobs centered on our most elementary passions. ….
So if you’re smart, you love people, and you want to study psychology, do yourself a favor. Avoid well-meaning advice from humanities and social science professors to “follow your passion.” Instead, run the other way and develop new passions.
Oakley suggests that psychology majors think about engineering. It certainly makes sense in today’s job market where degrees like psychology or sociology at the undergraduate level are often worthless.
I’m not sure if a whole lot of psychology, education and social work majors could cut engineering. Frankly.
I remember having to bite my lip when my girlfriend in college – who was majoring in social work – said she would be in heaven when her final math class was over. She had to take some remedial class – the hardest thing was adding fractions. She never did understand it, but still got a “C”.
Perhaps at the undergrad level. In my PhD program, we had advanced statistics, research methods and a dissertation that required a fair amount of statistical analysis and math skills. Most applied docs require a high quantitative score on the GRE but I get that at the undergrad level, not much of this applies.
I think an undergraduate senior in electrical engineering with a decent GPA could easily – easily – handle the types of statistics classes that psychology Ph.D.s take (not even calculus based – some engineering seniors take calculus-based statistics for engineering applications).
On the other hand, I don’t think a lot of Ph.D. people in psychology, social sciences or education could pass a master’s level quantum mechanics course if their lives depended on it.
I have two relatives with Ph.D’s in education and psychology, respectively. I have a good feel for how much they really know about statistics.
It seemed that some of the people I knew in experimental psychology could handle calculus etc. and had taken those courses. But I get what you are saying. I took engineering calculus as an undergrad and yes, it was hard. However, it was doable. As for a master’s level quantum mechanics course, that would be hard for most people –even some engineers.
Howdy Dr Helen,
Couple observations:
- your own note confirms that the ability to master some complex skill is an aid in pursuing careers in many chosen fields.
- exactly what kind of positions are readily available for newly minted Sociology BA graduates?
. . . I think it’s great to pursue a field that appeals, but one should also go in with eyes wide open. In general, if you wish to work in the fields of sociology, psychology, history, English, social work, any of the “gneder or race” studies majors (except in secondary education in some states) it is often (usually?) necessary to get an advanced degree to gain employment.
Best Regards,
Oooh! You’re tempting me to throw away my ethical objections to human cloning.
The statistical methods that psychologists learn and use in research-based Ph.D. programs are more advanced than those taught to most undergraduate engineers. They have to be: social science data generally is much more difficult to analyze than engineering data. Please don’t be so sure that undergraduate engineers could learn these methods easily.
I teach statistics to engineering juniors and seniors at a top 10 school. When I need help with stats, I go to one of my university’s stat consultants, who generally are social science Ph.D.s. Please don’t poo-poo the social sciences: good work is hard work, in every field.
The statistics consultants at your “top ten” school are social-science people and not people from the department of statistics or mathematics. And you (supposedly) teach statistics in some capacity, but you go to some guy with a doctorate in education or psychology or whatever for advice. Walking right past the statistics department.
OK.
In any case, I know that I was considering a course involving multi-variate integration in statistics my senior year in an engineering program, and that’s not unusual or out of the ordinary.
That WOULD be very unusual for a person getting a doctorate in education or social work or whatever to take statistics in that depth.
As to “poo-pooing” the social sciences, they deserve to be poo-pooed. I used to think they were objective. They aren’t. My awakening came with the “research” of Lenore Weitzman. She showed that women have it far worse financially upon divorce. Those evil-bastard men just live it up. But then stuff came out about her confusing 28 with 82 (huh – no plausibility checking among the social-science geniuses?), not releasing her raw data, not taking obvious factors in standard of living into account (certain post-divorce payments of men to women, women living with a new partner etc.) and a host of other problems.
Here’s how “research” is done in the social sciences: You start with a premise, i.e. men bad, women good. Then you collect data or pretend to collect it. Then you make lots of noise and important-sounding calculations and chi-square the standard deviation into the special variance of the confounding-factor dispersion. Then you announce your findings: Men are bad and women good.
Now if you want to say that their ACTIVISM is also hard work, great. But let’s be real here, puh-leeze.
I’ll see your graduate statistics in psychology and raise you Maxwell’s equations which usually hit electrical engineers junior year.
Being careful not to comment on any one persons ability to do so, let me just point out that:
There’s a pretty big gap between being able to apply statistical methods and being able to apply them correctly. The gap is then bigger still to those able to derive them.
And from the outside looking in, the FAR bigger problem is people applying those methods who draw no distinction between correlation and causation, and frankly, often seem unaware that there IS a distinction.
I’m sure VVRM is correct that there are plenty of psychology graduate students who couldn’t handle engineering coursework. Engineering and psychology are very different subjects and demand very different skills. So while I agree with your observation, I would just add the converse, that many engineering students lack the skills necessary to succeed in psychology; tolerance of ambiguity, social adeptness, exceptional receptive and expressive verbal communication skills, empathy, patience. I could go on.
I wonder what would happen if you took a good engineering program and a good graduate psychology program and swapped all the students? (A lot of unhappy students I suspect.) Would all the psychotherapy patients of the former engineers race to jump off the bridge built by the former psychology students before the bridge collapsed? I suppose we’ll never know.
Yeah, well, whatever.
At my university, engineering students had to take a certain number of classes their first two years in the humanities and social sciences. All classes were open – I DID take psychology because it interested me. An absolute cake walk.
I note that social-science people also had to take a certain number of science classes. Since they … couldn’t … cut … a … real … physics … class, there were watered-down courses like “Physics for Social Science Majors” (something like that).
There is no way that social science people can understand things like Maxwell’s Equations (mentioned by Locomotive Breath). What is offensive is that social science people try to balance that out: Engineers can’t do this or that. The truth is that smart people take certain subjects because they really LEARN something, and the others go into easier areas where you talk about your feelings more. That’s all there is to it. Dumb people don’t want to admit that their dumb.
My experiences with engineering students taking psychology classes is similar to WTF’s. Typically they ace the exams and the psych majors in the class (virtually all females, btw) are astonished to discover that these knowledgeable young men are – eww – engineering majors (a.k.a. “undateables, though I must admit that the physics majors may have it a bit worse). An engineering student taking classes outside their major is often feared by their peers as a curve-wrecker.
Sometimes I ask one of these young men why they’re in the class and answers range from “I want to start my own business someday after I graduate and I thought some psychology would be good to know”, to “I want to round out my education”. Those fellows are often astonished how easy it is for them to lead in the class – they’re not just acing tests; often they are also carrying the class discussion too and doing the most outside reading to boot! Still, I must not leave out the occasional one whose answer is the cynical but practical “I need an A to raise my GPA”. (That one’s been talking to an advisor or an engineering upperclassman.)
P.S. The engineering undergrads often blow away all but the best* philosophy majors in phil classes too. The engineering students master the nomenclature easily, have excellent reasoning and formal deduction skills, and posess rather rugged internal B.S. detectors (even if they can’t fully unravel where some leading philosopher went wrong, they won’t easily cave in to a torrent of gobbledygook philosophy-speak).
*And most of these have the talent to excel in STEM majors but somewhere along the way fell in love with philosophy. (I call it the ‘other’ curve-wrecker’s major!)
… admit that “they’re” dumb.
LOL
I know a number of very smart people who could handle the math and science coursework that got engineering degrees and became very unhappy engineers. It seems trite, but I believe engineers truly do think differently from non-engineers. It’s not just a knack for math and science, it’s a problem-solving mentality. Engineers love an elegant solution to a problem.
I know of what I speak, I have an engineering degree from Purdue University.
But would they have been happier with BAs in psychology and…doing what? Asking people if they want fries with that? Living in Dad’s basement because they have no job, no income, and no hope of being ever able to pay the vig on their student loans, let alone the nut? Being robbed, raped, or murdered in an Occupy squalorville?
The point of the blog post that Dr. Smith isn’t that following your dreams will make you unhappy, or that running from them will make you happy; it is that “I got a degree in the subject that I love most” is not necessarily followed by “…and I got a $50,000 job doing the work that I love most”.
Well, men have to find their way in the work world for the most part, and a silly college major isn’t going to help that.
Women, on the other hand, are not necessarily going to wind up in the dire circumstances you detail. They have “Plan B”.
They can dual major in feminist literature and French poetry in English translation, run up huge student loans having a great time in college, work for a while out of college, and then marry some chump who will pay for it all.
That still works today.
It’s also called “Escape Hatch B” when something goes wrong in life for women (like getting fired because of the Patriarchy although you did NOTHING WRONG). Then it’s time to shame the good-earning boyfriend into marrying you, and a move into the well-earned and very important position of housewife. When you get bored with watching The Talk and The View and Dr. Phil, it’s time for the sucker to give you “HALF” as you begin your new career and life on your own. All the while having other suckers pay for your entertainment and dates and vacations.
Rinse and repeat as needed.
Akatsukami,
Possibly – One I know went back to school to become a guidance counselor.
Engineers have to have “The Knack”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw
In her comments to me, Barbara Oakley says she has a Pd.D. in Systems Engineering. Which is not really engineering.
Love the clip.
“Can he have a normal life?”
“No. He’ll be an engineer.”
FYI, Systems Engineering really is an engineering discipline, and along w/ EE relies on rigorous applied math.
The men I have known well–most of them with Ph.Ds–were too intelligent to follow their dreams. After all, dreams are merely that–dreams.
Intelligent people usually have numerous interests because they tend to discover early in life–often through reading a lot–that just about anything is interesting, once you learn something about it. And they discover that the more you know about something, the more interesting it becomes. So, people with a lot of interests also discover, as they mature, that it makes sense to continue working on those interests that also happen to pay well or provide you with more prestige. Smart men figure this out by the time they are about 15 or 16 years old. By the time they become successful adults, they have forgotten that the particular interest they pursued was just one of many in the past. So it becomes easy to simply attribute their success to following some particular dream–anyway, that what others want to hear.
Well, you can follow your passion and perhaps to some extent you should. However, you also have to eat and generally like a warm place to sleep. So it’s good to follow something economically useful as well.
If you can develop a passion for your economically useful pursuits then it is all good. If you can live to your standard while following your unadapted passion, then you’ve won the life lottery.
David Henderson over at Econlog had this anecdote when interviewed about studying second languages:
–At the end, one of two hosts asked me, “If you were giving a 12-year-old American kid advice on what languages to learn, what advice would you give?” I think he was expecting me to say “English and Chinese.” I answered, “Two languages: English and math.”–
Learn those two and you have capabilities. And school is about developing capabilities for life. You shouldn’t forego the development of capabilities just because you aren’t passionate about the skill.
What if my dream is pretty much impossible, or very unlikely? Like being an astronaut, an NBA player, or a competitive yacht captain? I settle. I pick something I CAN do, and look for opportunities to make my life happier, and try to find fulfillment in family, community, religion, etc. This is what adults do.
Most of those people who are “following their dreams” into undergrad degrees in art history or sociology are probably better off not wasting the money on college at all. They’d be better off just getting the training and going directly into careers as clerks or copier repairmen.
Get a job that makes you $$$ that you can live with. Pursue your passions in your spare time. Maybe someday, those passions will make you $$$ too. Or maybe not.
I have a relative who was a garbageman for years and practiced woodworking in his spare time. Now he makes more money woodworking than he ever made as a garbageman. Good for him, and also kudos to him he was willing to do a tough, dirty job that put food on the table for so long.
let’s not conflate the ease with which things are done in college with the aptitude to make a career of them.
As uninspiring as it is, the advice may be more usable along the lines of “find something that you can tolerate that pays the bills… and THEN figure out a passion that can pay the bills, maybe.”
This is what jobs and work is about for the 80% middle of the curve. For all the passionate people who actually make it following their dreams, there are also people who start working in their dream/passion/gift and have that work sour them on those very same things.
When I was a photographer, I hated taking pictures of my own kids. The last thing I wanted to do at night was pick up a camera, because I was drained. For some years after I got out of the industry I didn’t shoot much, because making it into a “Job” had killed the fun.
Ultimately the easy sayings about this stuff are the problem… It is much better when you realize that any job is an assemblage of things that you can barely tolerate, and things you love. When the toleration isn’t there, you have to move on…
Plug making money into it, and you ALSO get: “Right Sizing” Told the kids something I never heard when I was young. You can do anything you want, as long as you realize you have to make your life the right size to do that. The artistic fields rarely pay well. So? don’t expect to have a big house and a new car every few years. IMPORTANTLY don’t MARRY someone who expects those things, or your life will be hard.
This is true of most everything. I also told #1son that getting a really good basis of education would serve well, regardless of what he decides to do later. He DOES have an engineering mindset, so I am suggesting that way. And IF he decides he’d rather be a writer, it’s OK, he can add some of that on the side…
I think what we’re looking at here is the difference between “follow your dream and everything will work out magically for you” and “follow your dream or you’ll regret it later”. The first is just ditzy wishful thinking along the lines of “a happy workforce is a productive workforce.” The second has a slither of truth to it. I’m one of the lucky few who found an economic angle to his passion and luckier still in that the passion didn’t flag once it became an economic necessity.
But do I have a big house with a beautiful wife baking cupcakes, and couple of kids with Ivy League scholarships? No of course I don’t.
I did one better, I followed my abilities. I found out in High School that I have a natural ability for logic and computer programming, that’s what I studied (up to an MS degree), and that’s what I’ve been doing for over 25 years now.
There’s a problem with directing people into engineering though. When I started college (1981), Computer Science was the “sexy” major, and there was LOTS of money to be made, so everyone declared Comp Sci as major. My first computer science class was PACKED, people were sitting on the window sills because there weren’t enough chairs int he classroom. As a guess, maybe seventy people crammed into that classroom. Half of them dropped the class (largely because we had a TOUGH prof) and only about seven or eight people from that class graduated with a degree in computer science.
Here’s something Dr Helen may find interesting about that professor though. He had a reputation for being “sexist”. What that meant, in practice, was that he expected the same level of performance from his female students as from his male students, he made them work just as hard, and was as quick to flunk them if they didn’t make the grade.
“I did one better, I followed my abilities.”
Wise choice that! Realistic dreams have a better chance of coming true.
Trey
My Dad’s advice was to find a good boss, because its better to do work you don’t like for a good boss, than it is to do work you love for a terrible one.
Good work is more about the people you work with, than the work you do.
Slightly off-topic, but I’d like to put in a word for retiring the term “passion” from public discourse for awhile.
I’ve spent my life working in pretty good jobs and I have no regrets. But I also have no “passion” for my work and most people I know have no “passion” for their work either. People use the word “passion” instead of “interests” because the former flatters them; it makes them seem more “alive,” their lives more epic. Watch an episode of Top Chef in which every chef sooner or later is quoted about his/her “passion” for Asian food or whatever. We know full well that some of those folks fell into their careers unexpectedly or perhaps even against their own wishes, then discovered that they liked the work, or they liked the people involved, or they thought they could make successes of themselves and they stuck with it. All of those things are perfectly good reasons for sticking with a career, but do they signify “passion”?
How many people, in their chosen profession, really have ever had the unquenchable desire implied by the word “passion,” a desire that led them to sacrifice everything else for their careers? Perhaps a few among any group, but most did not. The word has become so devalued that I hear it constantly from people and I expect that many use it as a marker, a way of currying favor or respect from colleagues rather than as an accurate description of the way they really feel. Enough already.
Following your dreams is actually a pretty fantastic idea. It’s when people ignore reality in the process that things start going all pear shaped.
This whole thing feels like a series of false dichotomies. An engineering-type personality could do great in the field of psychology (designing tests and studies), and a psychology-type personality could be successful doing engineering (probably as a supervisor). A person can develop skills outside his comfort zone, but he shouldn’t pursue a field he’s uninterested in. You can make money doing something you kind of like, but nobody likes every aspect of his job.
The most important lesson in all of this is to use multiple criteria for choosing your major. Your major doesn’t determine what you’ll be doing the rest of your life, but it is one of the three or four decisions you make that limit your options. If I could offer one bit of advice to college students, it would be to explore the possibility of a double major or a major and a minor. An engineer with a psych minor, or a psychology major with an engineering minor, is going to get a lot more attention during an interview.
I agree with Voyager @ #10, the people you work with have more to do with enjoying your work then what you are doing. That’s why I am where I am, my degree is in Mechanical Engineering but I started here as an intern doing Civil Engineering. I stayed after I got my degree because it is interesting enough, pays enough, and I don’t dread going to work every morning.
When I was younger I sat down and made three lists, one of the things I don’t mind doing, the second of things I’m better then the average population at, and the third of what jobs people actually get paid for. I then looked into what overlapped all three lists.
That’s smart.
“… and a psychology-type personality could be successful doing engineering (probably as a supervisor).”
–
Sorry, a supervisor who has no clue as to what he is supervising is really a plague to the engineers who have to do the work (and the work of the supervisor, because he/she is clueless). Seen it too many times. Let the psychology people wander off into some other area, and leave people with a clue alone.
I’ve phrased it in a really nice way. If someone wants to argue that psychologists should be “supervising” engineers, I’ll tell you more bluntly.
Sorry – I should have put that better. I was thinking about our natural skills versus our academic credentials.
If you bring together a group of people with the same occupation (truck drivers, psychologists, engineers, whatever) you’re going to find some with a greater facility at communication, some better teachers, some better at math, or mechanical work, or any number of other skills. A smart employer will make sure that each employee finds the position that best suits his skills. If you give me a team of ten engineers, and one of them is naturally better at psychology (maybe even thought about it as a major), he’s probably going to be a better potential supervisor. That’s all I was saying.
There’s no one who’s 100% perfect at his job and 0% good at anything else. I agree with Oakley’s article to a point, but we should aim for a correspondence between our inclinations, our interests, our majors, and our professions. And over time, we may find that our unique skills can be used within our professions.
I think “follow your abilities” is the best advice I’ve seen in this thread. I’m short, amblyopic and have cerebral palsy; if I’d followed some dream of being a star basketball player no good result would have ensued.
But “follow your abilities” isn’t final either. I have great natural ability as a salesman/persuader; I can sell ice to the proverbial Eskimos when I need to. And this did actually turn out to be useful when I accidentally became famous and had to lead a reform movement for a while. But I *shudder* when I think where following that ability for its own sake might have led me – the last thing the world needs is more people who measure their own worth by their ability to peddle snake oil.
So I’d say follow your abilities, but only if you think they’ll take you somewhere that adds value to the world and leaves you ethically clean.
(Er, me? I’m a software engineer. And an occasionally bestselling writer. And a consulting economist. And several other things. All of which, in Robert Heinlein’s terms, are “makers” rather than “takers” or “fakers”.)
I truly like my line of work, but dislike where I work. So working at the right place doesn’t stay a no brainer for long. My life long “passion” has always been playing electric guitar and I do it as a hobby – like pursuit with others I get along with well. We jam on Sundays, eat steak on the grill and drink various micro brew beers, trying different ones every weekend. As millions have discovered, playing music for a living is not a good idea.
For instance:
Q. What do you call a guitar player who just broke up with his girlfriend?
A. Homeless.
The Nashville version: Q. How do you get a drummer off your front porch? A. Pay him for the pizza.
Trey
“Math class is tough!” Barbara Millicent Roberts, 1992
I guess it depends on the passion. I discovered Computer Science in my junior year of high school. (Not sayin’ when that was exactly.) I majored in CS and got a good and have a had a good career.
My oldest son decided to major in Social Work. He cannot get work in that field and is managing a cafe for a large high-end grocery chain. He has decided to enter nursing school to be able to earn a good living and still work with people the way he wants to.
It’s a choice that’s completely framed the wrong way. Passion might get you to the top of something. But I’m not sure, always, that the top of a profession is the right top. Maybe having a job that uses your skills and talents, among people you like, lets your passion be played out at home, or at church, or in some other creative or service setting.
I’m not sure Jeff Immelt is the preacher that can call forth your inner soul’s deepest response. Or if that’s even a good thing.
When I saw the title of this post I thought you had discovered Cal Newport and his excellent blog Study Hacks. He has written extensively on this topic and his post on The Career Craftsman pretty well explains his idea. Highly recommended.
Without qualifiers, it is bad advice. You must be realistic and look at the job market. There’s a guy I know of who followed his passion of fly fishing. He did it by becoming a guide and then opened a shop to sell equipment. But, not every passionate fly fisherman can do that, not enough customers.
I tell my kids to find a career area that pays you well enough and is at least adequately enjoyable to satisfy you, then, enjoy yourself off the job.
The education industry is in trouble. All careers that can be educated into are being saturated with candidates, especially all government jobs. The goal of finding a job, if educated, is first, to develop good social and communication skills in addition to whatever else you studied. Without those, you will not land a job. Secondly, find out how to be valuable right out of the shoot. Learn a basic, valuable skill in your field by whatever means necessary that an employer will pay for so you are not useless and have already proven your commitment to the field you are seeking to enter. Employers are not teachers.
An author by the name of Marsha Sinetar wrote a book in 1989 called, “Do What You Love,The Money Will Follow.” She neglected to add that it would most likely follow at a discrete distance and never get any closer.
As others have written, you must look at the whole situation. “Go into engineering” isn’t any more universally applicable than “follow your passion.” Just make sure your chosen career isn’t a one-trick-pony that won’t make you enough to live like you want to live. It’s not all about money and it’s not all about fulfillment.
Today’s students have quick access to average salaries, employment rates and industry prospects. It is amazing to me how many of them don’t look at any of these before deciding what they study. If you want to pursue a degree in social work, I don’t have a problem with that as long as you truly understand you will not be making a high salary in a stress-free environment the day after graduation. People get good salaries for one of two reasons: not anyone can do the job (e.g., brain surgeons or NFL QBs) or few people want to (e.g., contractors working in a war zone, the guy who cleans your septic system).
If you are a doctor or a minister you have to love your job because you never truly put those jobs down on the weekends and may have to field a 2 AM phone call. If, OTOH you have a job that you can easily put aside at 5:01 pm and never work weekends, then you only have to not hate your job. A true 40-hour week leaves a lot of time to peruse your passions after you pay the bills. Too many young people believe this myth that most people love their jobs.
The studies I’ve seen over the years indicate that three big factors for job happiness are:
(1) Is the work important to someone? (I.e., does my work make a difference?)
(2) Does someone (my boss, my customer, my students) notice what I do? (Do I personally make a difference?)
(3) Is it easy for me to tell when I perform well? (Do I get regular feedback?)
The nightmare of pushing TPS reports anonymously in a cubicle would fail on all three. Things like the military and sales tend to succeed on two or more. And people will often take less money if all three are met.
And another thing these discussions tend to overlook: you will likely be switching careers. Our grandfathers may have worked for one company their entire careers. Our parents may have stayed in one industry. The current projection is that people will likely change careers at least five times. So the best skills are literacy, numeracy, adaptability, and a good work ethic.
My wife is an MD. Which is not normally considered an easy discipline. However there was a required physics course in her medical school. Some medical students considered it too hard, and asked the professor why they needed the course to be doctors. He replied that it was to keep stupid people out of medicine. Anyone who could not pass his physics class, should not be making life and death decisions.