Most students’ ideal university experience is to find out what they are passionate about doing for the rest of their life. No big deal, right? But in today’s economy, passions must align with relativity, and to survive we must pick a stable career that will be able to sustain us. So many settle. Maybe your dream career seems out of reach, unrealistic, or maybe you can’t afford to stay in school for the years it will require, maybe it’s easier to get a quick degree, or to not go to post-secondary at all.
The “degree dilemma” is something I believe every adolescent will go through. But it’s important to ask ourselves “are we studying what we love or just what pays?” At the end of the day, what are you going to gain more from?
A survey from 2021 found that 83 per cent of university students think you should study a subject you love. Yet, instead of following their passions, 68 per cent pursue fields that are realistic. With the cost of living constantly increasing, how can we not base our futures on how to best survive? Many students prefer to keep it safe, as so many careers are becoming harder and harder to make a living off of. Journalism, for example, is one art form that is seen as dying when really, it’s just transforming from print to digital media. Even so, finding a career in journalism that will be able to sustain a person is becoming increasingly challenging. Many students have a passion to go into the medical field, but the draining hours, money for those years of schooling, and risk you might not make it are terrifying.
While the logic behind giving up passions to take an easier, safer or more realistic path makes sense, why are we as students letting capitalism indirectly encourage us to give up dreams and follow the pursuit of material wealth and stability?
Don’t get me wrong, some will be perfectly happy pursuing a nine to five career to keep this stability, and some will be happy not getting a full-time career at all. Personally, to maintain a healthy state of mental health, I need to succeed in a career that is driven by my passions. I don’t know what I want to do for the rest of my life right now, but that is just what we are all trying to figure out. Everyone is just frantically trying to survive. We may as well survive while doing something we enjoy.
Amy Wrzesniewski and Barry Schwartz from the New York Times found that “students who follow their passion in school are much more likely to be successful in their chosen careers than those who begin their studies thinking only about a career.” You see this all the time in classes, students who are passionate about sociology will get much better grades in it than they do in their statistics class, just as those who are more passionate about statistics will do better in it then they do in a sociology class.
If we have the option to succeed in a career we love, isn’t the extra work and money worth it in the long run?
You should spend your life doing what you love. If you have to study, study what you love. Not only will you enjoy yourself more, but you will also be more successful that way.
The years we spend studying and working can be filled with enjoyment, rather than a constant battle to maintain wealth and stability. The average person in Canada works about 1,800 hours a year, for approximately 40 years, this is around 72,000 hours of your lifetime. This isn’t merely a measure of time — it’s an endless range of potential.
What those hours transform into could be a routine that sucks your energy and enthusiasm as you regret dreams you never chased, or could be moments filled with passion, creativity and fulfilment. This choice rests entirely in your hands.
