How Do I Pick a Major if I Can't Follow My Passion?

00:00:00.000 | Alright, Samantha asks, How do I pick a college major if I shouldn't follow my passion slash

00:00:11.840 | interest?

00:00:12.840 | Well, so Samantha, this is where I can point again to my core idea videos, there is now

00:00:18.660 | a core idea video live on the YouTube page about my idea of not following your passion.

00:00:24.520 | So the background for this discussion can be found on that video, everyone can go reference

00:00:28.820 | it to get the specific thoughts behind my ideas about passion and its role in career

00:00:34.040 | selection.

00:00:35.040 | And the thing you will notice if you go back and rewatch that video is that passions slash

00:00:42.400 | interest is a problematic conjunction, they're not the same thing.

00:00:49.640 | So you're the issue here is you're joining those two things together.

00:00:54.280 | Passion is the idea that you are wired for a particular pursuit or direction.

00:00:59.520 | And that if you align yourself with that pursuit, you will be happy and fulfilled.

00:01:02.040 | And if you don't, you won't.

00:01:03.560 | It is a very high bar, there's one true thing you're supposed to be doing, get it right

00:01:08.840 | or you're screwed.

00:01:11.440 | Interest is here's something that seems interesting to me.

00:01:15.720 | There can be many things that seem interesting to you.

00:01:18.440 | And many things that don't.

00:01:20.240 | I think interest is a perfectly fine criteria to help select, let's say a major, this major

00:01:25.680 | seems interesting to me.

00:01:27.240 | I like the opportunities that would open up if I did it well, good, go for that.

00:01:32.180 | And what if there's five majors that pass that criteria, then it doesn't really matter

00:01:35.700 | which one you choose.

00:01:38.480 | Passion is not the same as interest.

00:01:39.760 | Passion says there's one true thing if you get it wrong, you're screwed.

00:01:42.800 | Interest is just a useful piece of information you can use in making a choice.

00:01:46.620 | So what I'm trying to do here is lower the bar.

00:01:50.080 | Lower the bar when it comes to selecting something like a major or selecting a career, lowering

00:01:54.320 | the bar from there's one right answer.

00:01:57.120 | If you get it wrong, you're screwed.

00:01:58.960 | Down to there's a lot of reasonable pursuits on which you can build a enjoyable academic

00:02:03.760 | career in which you can build an enjoyable professional career.

00:02:05.920 | There's a lot of them.

00:02:07.160 | So give it a little bit of thought.

00:02:08.160 | But once you find something that's reasonable, go with it and don't overthink it.

00:02:12.440 | I think the straw man that you're sitting up here, Samantha, is throwing the bar out

00:02:16.640 | and say, no, it doesn't matter what you do.

00:02:18.000 | Just choose completely randomly.

00:02:19.640 | Problem studies or computer science.

00:02:20.880 | I'll just throw a dart.

00:02:21.880 | Who cares?

00:02:22.880 | And I think that's nonsense, right?

00:02:23.880 | Like we have inclinations, we have interest, we have skills we've already built out in

00:02:27.560 | one area versus another.

00:02:28.800 | We like the lifestyles enabled by this path better than the lifestyles enabled by that

00:02:32.920 | path.

00:02:34.440 | Use all that information to make a selection, but just don't overthink it and be happy with

00:02:39.080 | the fact there might be a bunch of different choices that all satisfy those criteria.

00:02:43.880 | What really matters is what you do next.

00:02:47.000 | What you do once you actually made that choice.

00:02:48.880 | And the reason why this is important is that it was actually college majors was the original

00:02:54.280 | thing that got me interested in the topic of following your passion.

00:02:57.400 | It was the original thing that set me down the path to writing my book, So Good They

00:03:01.440 | Can't Ignore You.

00:03:02.920 | Because what I was seeing when I was a graduate student writing advice for students is I kept

00:03:08.120 | hearing the same story again and again.

00:03:11.400 | Students at these elite schools like MIT would come time to choose their major and they'd

00:03:16.280 | been taught follow your passion.

00:03:19.680 | So they believed there's one major I'm wired to do.

00:03:23.520 | The chorus of angels will start singing if I choose that right major and if I get it

00:03:27.080 | wrong it's going to be bad.

00:03:28.720 | And here's what would happen.

00:03:30.320 | They would get to their junior year.

00:03:32.120 | The courses would get harder.

00:03:33.620 | Why did the courses get harder?

00:03:34.940 | Because they're in their junior year.

00:03:36.080 | This is where you have to take the upper level courses that depend on the intro courses as

00:03:40.320 | their prerequisites.

00:03:41.860 | Hard courses aren't super fun.

00:03:44.040 | The problem sets are difficult.

00:03:45.360 | It's frustrating.

00:03:46.360 | You can't get things right.

00:03:47.360 | They're difficult.

00:03:48.360 | You get worse grades on essays than you're used to.

00:03:50.800 | That's part of how this works.

00:03:52.520 | But because these students were taught you have a one true passion in the chorus of angels

00:03:56.520 | will sing if you find it, they would take this hardness, this sense of, oh, I don't

00:04:00.360 | love this every day as an indication that I must not have chosen the one true passion.

00:04:05.160 | How could this possibly be my one true passion if it's frustrating me and I don't love it?

00:04:08.600 | And what they would do, they would switch their majors late in the game.

00:04:13.840 | And it would be a problem because it's hard to start from scratch with a new major.

00:04:17.000 | And it was this epidemic of late stage major shifting that actually first got me interested

00:04:21.360 | in these topics of passion culture.

00:04:23.320 | I thought this was crazy.

00:04:24.320 | Like, what are you guys doing?

00:04:26.640 | You can't switch your major this late.

00:04:28.200 | Like, you're going to have to spend an extra year.

00:04:29.800 | You're going to be scrambling.

00:04:30.800 | You're going to be miserable.

00:04:31.800 | But they were so sure that passion was a thing and passion means you'll love it.

00:04:36.000 | And they weren't loving it because, you know, the differential equations you're doing in

00:04:39.680 | your junior year, you're in your physics major are a pain.

00:04:43.400 | And they would switch and it would really be bad for them.

00:04:44.960 | It would really be negative.

00:04:45.960 | It would hurt their academic life.

00:04:47.640 | It would make them miserable in their personal life.

00:04:49.520 | And it didn't open up any new opportunities.

00:04:51.040 | And so that's what actually got me into this topic in the first place.

00:04:53.640 | So no, we're not wired to do one thing, but it doesn't mean we can do everything.

00:04:58.960 | So use reasonable criteria to make a choice.

00:05:01.620 | Have a reason why you choose something, but don't over sweat that reason.

00:05:04.160 | And don't be worried if more than one thing satisfies it.

00:05:06.600 | There's lots of paths to a passionate, interesting life.

00:05:10.040 | You don't have to find the one true thing, but you do have to give it a little bit of

00:05:13.440 | thought.

00:05:14.520 | [MUSIC]

How Do I Pick a Major if I Can't Follow My Passion?

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