Career professionals and counselors always give us the advice that people should follow their passion. Although this advice seems to solve the problem, we should ask ourselves another question. The question is: can my passion sustain me when I finish college? In other words, there should be an intersection between passion and financial sustainability. Otherwise, your passion becomes hobby. The neglect of the financial aspect of it in the equation is a complete mistake. We have to remember that we go to the grocery store, no one wants to know what you do. The only language the cashier understands is the payment. Therefore, the financial compensation of education cannot be neglected the way it is done by career advisors. That one goes to college and gets a degree is not enough to succeed in the market.
The first condition for career success is to have the skill the market needs. The second condition is to add value to the skill so that you become indispensable to any organization. So, when coosing a profession, you should look for information about the compensation and the trend of the profession. Through your committment to the profession, you can develop passion over it. Information about professions and careers are readily available and free at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the USA and its equivalent in other countries. For example, this can be found through IBGE in Brazil. You can also get the information from career magazines. The website addresses of these bodies are http://www.bls.gov/ooh/ and http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/, respectively.
Do not make the mistake many people make. They think asking for the information about compensation is a sin. It is not. It makes a lot of sense to know about what you will be making in the future. How can you spend more than 4 years without knowing what will be the end game. Think about it. I hope this information will be useful to those trying to start their career or those who want to change their career.
I would like to know your opinion.
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