In this video from Prager University, Mike Rowe critiques the adage, “follow your passion”. Many of us say this without thinking about the ramifications of following this advice.
Here are some excerpts from the video.
“Why would you tell someone to never give up on their dreams without even knowing what they’re dreaming? How can another person know where your passion will lead you? What happens when your passion and your ability have nothing to do with other?”
“If we’re talking about your hobby, by all means let your passion lead you. But when it comes to making a living it’s easy to forget the dirty truth; “Just because your passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it.”
“And just because you’ve earned a degree in your chosen field it doesn’t mean you’re going to find your dream job. Dream jobs are just that, dreams. But their imaginary existence just might keep you from exploring a legitimate chance to perform meaningful work and develop a genuine passion for the job you already have. Because here’s another dirty truth; Your happiness on the job has very little to do with the work itself.”
“Consider the job market right now. Millions of people with degrees and diplomas are out there competing for very narrow set of opportunities that polite society calls good careers. Meanwhile employers are struggling to fill nearly 5.8 million jobs that nobody’s trained to do. this is “the skills gap”. It’s real and it’s cause is very simple. When people follow their passion they miss our on all kinds of opportunities they didn’t know existed.”
“….and while passion is why too important to be without, it is way to fickle to follow around. Which brings us to our final dirty truth; Never follow your passion, but always bring it with you.”
THE COST/BENEFIT OF A COLLEGE EDUCATION
Charles Hugh Smith: It’s Time To Ditch 4 Years Of Costly College For Directed Apprenticeships (read here).
In this article, Charles Hugh Smith, at oftwominds.com, asks the $64,000 questions about going into debt for a worthless college degree. Here are some excerpts from the article.
“So it turns out sitting in a chair for four years doesn’t deliver mastery in anything but the acquisition of staggering student-loan debt. Practical (i.e. useful) mastery requires not just hours of practice but directed deep learning via doing of the sort you only get in an apprenticeship.”
“Let’s start by admitting our system of higher education is unsustainable and broken: a complete failure by any reasonable, objective standard. Tuition has soared 1,100% while the output of the system (the economic/educational value of a college degree) has declined precipitously.”
“The typical graduate of a short, intense directed apprenticeship says “I learned more in a month here than I did in four years of college.” this is a statement of fact, and it is the result of the methods deployed in structured on-the-job training.”
“Our higher educational system has failed so badly that many students are incapable of writing/communicating effectively….To “graduate” students with poor writing skills is completely unforgivable. Yet in the current system, if a student logs the requisite number of credits, a diploma is duly issued, regardless of how little he/she actually learned.”
“The entire “campus experience” should be jettisoned, not just as an overly expensive infrastructure but as a detriment to fast, deep learning that is the foundation of mastery…..the most successful incubators of talent around the world are generally in makeshift of decrepit buildings, not fancy new gleaming buildings of the sort that dot American college campuses. Surrounded by luxury, who feels any hunger to learn anything voraciously?”
“Short, intense directed apprenticeships that teach students how to learn on their own to mastery are the future of higher education. We can continue to squander trillions of dollars on an ineffective system until it finally collapses under its own weight, or we can admit the current contraption is unsustainable and a failure, and move on to a better, cheaper system.”
Related Article – Young People Get Hooked Into Huge Debt When They Take The Student Loan Bait, at austrianaddict.com.
Related Article – Follow Up To Student Loan Debt Post. Government Creates The Problem, It Isn’t The Solution, at austrianaddict.com.
AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT 