Why “Follow Your Passion” Is Bad College Advice

There is this notion, and honestly, I don’t even know if it’s a notion or a belief, but a lot of times people say follow your passion. Your passion will never have you broke. It will always make room for you. And I struggle with this. I think people become really good at certain things, or can really like to know a lot of detail about a particular topic, but I don’t know if I would call that passion. I think I would call it your zone of genius. The zone of genius is a space where one has interest, but also has the work ethic to back it. My biggest wrestling is that passion has, for so long, seemed like a low bar. Society has negated the fact that anything you want to do well, for a long time, requires work. Under the guise of passion, some people make it seem like there’s no work involved, that it just naturally becomes you. Now somebody might read this and say you’re projecting because you don’t know what you want out of life, but remember, I’m a generalist with peak interest across various things. Telling people they should have a passion negates those of us that have multiple interests.

This conversation comes up often when I work with students. There are some that look at post secondary attainment as a means to achieving credentials. There are others that see the bachelor’s degree program as an opportunity to find your passion or who you are. In the United States, most students obtaining a bachelor’s degree are going to college between the ages of 17 and 23, and researchers and scientists who study development know that this is a pivotal time for a person to grow and gain more nuance about the world. But I stopped telling kids to find your passion when deciding to go to school. I changed my messaging to find your zone of genius. Your zone of genius is the opportunity for you to care about a topic, subject, or social issue, while also finding an avenue to be a generalist or a specialist. When talking to kids, it is not that elaborate. My conversation is: have your pockets of sunshine, but also be really good at something that’s going to give you sustainability. Most kids understand that. Now there are some that say, well, I’m only going to school because I do XYZ, and that’s fine. However, if you could no longer do XYZ, what would you do? That question tends to come up a lot for my student athletes, because we have to understand the risk and probability of being in professional sports. My artistic students tend to understand that they can be multifaceted. The arts are an outlet, a happy place, but they’re also really good at something else. I’ve also helped them see how their areas of expertise can support each other. I had one student that really enjoyed music. They played the piano and trumpet, but because of their upbringing, they wanted to be a mental health therapist. After two years in their counseling program, they shared with me that they hadn’t picked up the trumpet or played the piano. I told them, have you ever thought about music therapy? It was like a lightbulb switched on, because the one thing that had helped them, they realized they could use to help other people. That’s why I struggle with calling things passion. Even in adulthood, we set things down and come back to them years later. TikTok might tell you that you’re going back to your inner child, but is it really your inner child, or was it just a pocket of sunshine?

People don’t know this, but I was a Girl Scout for a very long time, and looking back, I did not really enjoy it. I was not a camping or outdoor kid, and I did not care for those activities. I knew deep down that if it came between surviving in the wilderness and just existing, I was going to exist. Did I learn other skills? Yes. I remember us talking about relationships in any capacity, using the “if, then” statements and the feelings and impact statements. I carry that to this day. But saying being a Girl Scout was my passion is an absolute lie. I learned things and took them with me. There it is again, pockets of sunshine.

I also think about passion through this lens: do I really want to put the work and effort behind it? That’s how I’ve come to know I don’t really have passions. I operate in zones of genius, and I am OK with that. To simplify my work with students, I ask, do you have a passion? If you do, great. If not, that doesn’t make you any less worthy or capable. Some students have zones of genius early. Some of my former students are operational wizards who can make sense of things their classmates cannot. Others really just don’t know, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. So I don’t give the blanket advice to follow your passion. And maybe that’s the real question underneath all of this: whose advice are you still following that no longer fits you? There are skills and habits the next generation of kids are either going to show or need in order to live a fulfilling life. If we don’t come to the realization that preparing our kids for the future requires real skills, we might just ruin their chance.