Suzy cried into her soggy bed sheets. She had invested in a university course that she wasn’t interested in and she couldn’t stand the boredom, but what could she do? It paid her and that was all she needed… right?
Students nearing high school or in high school have a lot to decide on. What courses should I take so I can maximize efficiency for future plans? Is AP and IB really worth the while? How will I know what career to choose when I get to college or university? Such questions are those of teens who haven’t a clue of what they aspire to be. One common and urgent question for many high schoolers is: Should I choose a career path that coincides with my passion or one that pays me?
For those who have a passion for doctoring or law, it might be an easier choice, but many students also have a liking for writing, art and other miscellaneous low paying positions, jobs in which society does not value as more important than health and justice. So how do you decide? From the perspective of someone who has chosen pay over passion, Trent, a writer for The Simple Dollar, expresses his thoughts on the long term effects of not choosing a career that he was interested in:
The long term effects of this showed up in my career and in my finances. I began to feel very burnt out on my actual career. At the same time, I would try to cure this feeling of failure and burning out by buying stuff that I didn’t really need or didn’t have time to really enjoy. This brought me deeper and deeper into credit card debt and deeper and deeper into a sense that I couldn’t escape.
However, others beg to differ such as Yan Jiang, a mother who thinks that students should choose careers based on pay. “When you choose a job that involves your interest or hobby, you will come to hate it, since your interest no longer becomes a fun pastime but rather a solid and pressing deadline for you to achieve over and over again. When you come home from work, you will no longer think ‘I should draw, sing, write, etc. for past time’ because it will have become something that you no longer love as an interest, but instead as something you dread because it is your work and you are continuously executing your hobby over and over again.”
“Family is also a key factor,” Ms. Jiang reasons. “Yes, you may be working at a place you love and your job showcases your passion, but when it comes down to finance and supporting a family, what will you do?”
When choosing a career, it is hard to decide between passion or pay. However, by reading and knowing two sides of a situation, I sincerely hope that students faced with this dire dilemma can figure out a path that is reasonable in their own eyes. Passion versus pay: It’s a life changing choice but after seeing possible faults in choosing either, which one will you value as more important?
Sources:
- “Ten Big Mistakes #2: Career Choices Based Solely on Earnings – The Simple Dollar.” The Simple Dollar Ten Big Mistakes 2 Career Choices Based Solely on Earnings Comments. The Simple Dollar, 8 Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://www.thesimpledollar.com/ten-big-mistakes-2-career-choices-based-solely-on-earnings/>.