Universities, high schools, and maybe even middle schools (Mom - adoptive mom, the one who lives in Dallas - homeschooled me until ninth grade) absolutely love having career assemblies. In high school, they'll round you all up and herd you, kicking and screaming, or at least kvetching and moaning, into some musty, linoleum-floored room and talk at you for an hour. In university, they'll just put up signs informing you that there is to be someone talking, for an hour, in a musty, linoleum-floored room, and you'll go because your conscience will inform you that you're at college to increase your chance for a good job so you'd better do all you can, dagnabbit. Maybe this time you'll actually garner something of use!
At least, this was my train of thought, and you know what? I was dead wrong. People had told me, for years, that college would be different. I'd like it better because people would want to be there. Sure enough, it was different. People did want to be there! They wanted to be there because they hand out free snacks at these things!
This, you see, gives the people in charge latitude to let the things themselves - workshops, seminars, meetings, whatever they elect to call them this time - just like they are in high school, which is to say "really loose summary of various job fields, followed by informing you that you need to network without telling you how, and then half an hour of Follow Your Passion."
That's all really cool, if you already know how to network (more on that later, probably) and if you have a unified, driving passion that - and this is the kicker - someone will pay you for. "Money doesn't buy happiness," "love of money is the root of all evil," "the best things in life are free" and so forth are fine and good, great advice really, but in order to pursue happiness, stand up to evil, and enjoy what life has to offer, you need to be able to pay the bills. Little things like eating food, not being naked, and having transportation are pretty nice, too.
"Follow your passion," too, is in its own way good advice. To feel deeply and strongly defines life as something beyond merely having vital signs. To pursue what you care about, to work for it, yearn for it, learn for it, shed sweat and tears and hopefully not blood for it - that enriches one's being, expands one's mind and turns accomplishment into triumph. To simply be, enjoying the susurrus of rain through leaves or the sight of a beloved cat warily stalking a wayward pair of boots, is one of those "best things in life."
However, you aren't going to get a job listening to rain or watching your cat. You probably also very unlikely to get anything more than supplemental income from writing fiction, drawing, painting, or theater, and if you manage to earn a living reading books, playing video games, making weird jokes or sleeping...well, in all actuality you're probably in a little padded room giggling at the ceiling, because that sort of thing just doesn't happen in the real world.
Thus, to any students reading this - or anyone else trying to find a professional direction in life - I won't say "don't follow your passion." I'll just say to be careful in following your passion. If it's medicine, law, or something of that sort, fantastic; otherwise, find something that you don't hate, and do that to earn your living. Follow your passion in your own time. Find joy in the weather, in the people you love, in books, in movies, in the antics of pets, in your own thoughts. In your own mind and in the world around you, don't just follow your passion, but create it, shape it, revel in it.
Don't think, though, that if it doesn't pay the bills, you're doing something wrong. The platitude that if you follow your passion, you'll make a living at it is one that sets the stage for years, if not decades, of disappointment. Realism may not be as glamorous, but it sure is less of a letdown.
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