A recurring theme on this blog is the perils of following one’s passion. Here is one example. According to both The Nation and National Review, A little over a decade ago, a fellow named Joe Therrien was working as a full-time drama teacher at an elementary school in NYC (read between those lines). Given such an arcane skill set, a normal person might consider oneself lucky to be employed at all. But no. Instead, he got fed up with the usual BS that most elementary school teachers face – particularly those in inner cities – so he quit his job and headed off to UConn to, you guessed it, pursue his passion. In this case, his passion was puppetry. Yes, puppetry. Otherwise gainfully employed, he left his job and matriculated to the University of Connecticut to earn an MFA (Masters in Fine Arts) degree in puppetry. I can hear Sterling Archer ask, somewhat rhetorically, “That’s a thing?”
Yes, evidently it’s a thing, but that’s not even the punchline. Nope. Three years later and $35,000 further in debt, Therrien’s degree was firmly in hand only to discover that puppetry is A) not exactly a growth industry, and thus B) puppeteers are not exactly in demand (what, the Jim Henson studio wasn’t hiring? Or was that too corporate for him? Or could he not be pried out of the Tri-State region?). So, he went back to work at the same type of job at his previous school in NYC.
But wait, that’s still not the punchline. Because of hiring freezes and budget cuts for the arts in that school’s district and surrounding areas, even though Joe’s old principal really wanted to hire him back, she just didn’t have the money to hire a new, full-time teacher. So, Joe ended up back doing the exact same work as before, but as a full-time substitute. This means that he was now working for half the pay as before, and no health insurance to boot.
Still think that pursuing your passion (untethered to market realities) for a career is a good idea? Think again. Yes, every once in a while it pans out for the occasional lucky soul. But usually, it’s a role of the dice at best, and most of us cannot afford to take that risk.
Now, can you combine your passion with marketable skills? Actually yes, provided you can use both to fill a need in the marketplace. But Mr. Therrien’s puppetry does not meet such specs in this case.
Meanwhile, did poor ol’ Joe learn his lesson, shape up, and pursue more marketable skills so as to claw his way out of his self-dug hole? Nope. Instead, he joined the Occupy Wall Street movement. You remember. They’re that horde of malcontents, who, when they weren’t wasting their time acting as if Wall Street was somehow the root of all evil, where setting up shanty tent villages where they wiled away the time creating unsanitary conditions (and that’s just for starters) in their tent shanties. Needless to say, Joe does not elicit much sympathy, as he clearly did not learn from his mistakes.
But we, on the other hand, can learn from other peoples’ mistakes so we can avoid making the same kind ourselves.
Time was, I once investigated the possibility of pursuing a PhD in Entomology. Insects have been a life-long interest of mine. For years, I’ve been the go-to guy for family and friends when it comes to insect identification and related matters. My own mom was trying to nudge me into this path of study for several years. Eventually, at the age of 26, I sat down with one of my former Entomology professors at Purdue, and he graciously spelled it out for me in black and white.
Basically, I would need about three years of study to catch up on undergrad-level science courses and to do the requisite masters-level work beforehand. “That’s so you can prove you can put together a thesis,” he said. Then, I’d be eligible for the doctoral program, which would take four years…at least. When you get into the hard sciences at the doctoral level, there’s always the risk that your research could hit a dead end, and you find yourself back to square one.
So even the best-case scenario would have me at this grind for seven years. Even then, after jumping through all those hoops, I’d still have to do post-doctoral research on top of all that in order to be eligible to become a professor. Even then, the job prospects in academia are not that great, as universities aren’t exactly hiring new Entomology professors in great numbers.
Regardless, in the course of our discussion, I showed him some photos of exotic insect specimens I had acquired within the past few years up to that point. Naturally, I was able to rattle off their scientific names as if they were second nature to me. Impressed, my old professor said “My, you’re tailor-made for Systematics (a division within any biological science discipline that deals with how things are classified). Too bad there’s not much call for that.”
Of course he was right…on both counts. Of course I was tailor-made for insect systematics. And, in a perfect world, that’s probably what I’d be doing. But this isn’t a perfect world, and that accounts, in part, for why there’s not much call for that, much like the aforementioned Joe Therrien finding out the hard way about those with masters degrees in puppetry.
In my case, I did some simple, implicit math. First, Entomology departments at universities are not tied to life science schools, but rather agriculture schools (because of the discipline’s emphasis on pest control). Surprise, not every university has an “ag” school. In fact, there’s only about one in each state, not including the giant states of California and Texas. And within that small set of options, there’s usually just one professor in each given department whose specialty is insect systematics. I looked at those numbers and those odds, saw the writing on the wall, and quickly gave up on the idea.
“But,” my old professor continued, “follow your passion, and eventually the opportunity will appear.” Yeah, just like it did for ol’ Joe Therrien. “No thanks,” I thought. I earnestly thanked my former professor for his time, and I walked out of his office giving up on the whole idea. I also decided at that time that if I ever did pursue a doctorate, it would be in something management-based, where there’s tons more opportunity to put it to good use, both in academia and elsewhere.
Are there times when you can apply your passion to areas where there is opportunity? There sure are, and we intend to explore those as time progresses.
Nevertheless, how much further along in life’s progress would Joe Therrien be if he took a more practical approach to his education? How much further along would we all be if we pursue opportunity and bring our passion with us, per Mike Rowe’s sage advice? Such an approach would allow all of us to optimally learn, grow, and prosper together, that’s for sure.