People have many needs. For a lot of people in this business attention is one of them. Often money is another need - movie / music star finances tend to be very variable
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Some of the people I mentioned are very wealthy and I doubt they need to work for the money. Believe it or not, some are not in it for the attention, but truly love the work.
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But many businesses would have been able to benefit from my colleague’s experience, he just wanted to walk away from it all. Some places even have formal processes to learn from those people (the DoD calls it “greybeards” Leadership of the Graybeards |).
And the rest of us often benefit when those hugely experienced people stay engaged. One of the wisest commentators on Ukraine is Harald Malmgren, who was “in the room” with JFK during the Cuban missile crisis and has known Putin since the early 1990s.
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Look at the political world, there are a LOT of politicians beyond retirement age. To be honest, I wish some of them would retire, LOL!
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My most satisfying work environments have been where there was an even mix of very experienced people with decades of knowledge they could share, mid-career folks who knew enough to manage people and projects and often did huge amounts of work themselves, and those just starting out who brought energy and fresh perspective to the workplace.
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There’s definitely a point when it may be better to be providing advice based on experience than actively leading. That may be more true in politics than some other fields, especially as a diversity of advice is important for decision makers.
OTOH Nancy Pelosi was S’s commencement speaker last week and (for those of us who normally just see news clips) was surprisingly with it, lots of people chatted with her afterwards and it didn’t feel like someone in their 80’s.
But it’s unclear how much of that is due to staying engaged helping your mental faculties remain sharp vs survivorship bias (if they weren’t you wouldn’t still be engaged). Probably some of each.
There are countless reasons for retirement besides jobs whether they are passionate about the job or not, making in extremely difficult to draw meaningful conclusions. For example, I picked up some items at Walmart yesterday, and the cashier appeared to be well past typical retirement age. This has happens fairly often at my area Walmart. However, I wouldn’t assume that Walmart cashiers tend to be passionate about their job. Some may instead choose to work past typical retirement age for an extra income source, to stay active, for social interaction, boredom, etc.
There are also people who retire for many other reasons, including things like wanting to do activities that are incompatible with their job. For example, someone in my industry recently retired. One of the first activities they are planning is sailing around the world. Others have planned multi-week hiking trips or multi-month travel trips. Some of these people may be passionate about their job, but that is not their only passion. There have a variety of other passions they’d like to spend more time on, some of which are incompatible with their job and may be difficult to pursue after reaching a certain age for health reasons.
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They make a lot of money but some also spend a lot of money (or forget to pay their taxes or get ripped off by their accountants/business managers). There have been many cases of celebrities who have had to liquidate assets in order to raise funds.
Those performing artists are charging as much as the market will bear for their concerts, so I think the pursuit of money must equal any passion as motivation. They are not exactly offering discounted tickets to the masses. Shout out to Taylor Swift, who did cap prices at $50 on one of her tours several years ago, to reach a broader audience.
I think that’s true in everything - careers, government service (congresspeople), and volunteer organizations.
Add: they want to continue working, but the job/workforce isn’t interested in them. Not mandatory retirement but more like sidelining them.
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I am happily retired, but if I could have compartmentalized my job to do only the parts I liked, I would have worked longer.
I have been following this discussion and have read it all. As someone who worked with high school seniors, I came to lament that today’s youth don’t have the luxury of having two years of college to figure things out as our generation did. I believe individuals are happier, and our nation is stronger when people choose their paths and honor their natural interests and talents. When given the time and exposure to possibilities, most students find an area of study that provides some degree of passion, and I think passion does drive innovation and excellence.
I also understand parents’ concerns about the cost of college, the ROI, and their children’s ability to leverage their college degree to land a job that allows them to support themselves and a future family. When college costs are so high, the pressure to get through the pipeline ASAP is real, and for some kids, that means continuing on a course they come to realize isn’t right.
I believe the system needs to change. Students today are under a lot of pressure, and the increase in mental health problems is alarming. So many colleges require students to apply to a major coming out of high school, and that is before many are ready. I wish the colleges had a tiered fee structure, offering one-hundred-level classes cheaply, and charging more as the classes become more specialized at the 300 and 400 levels. If schools could figure out how to give students some time to find their way without such a significant hit to their parent’s bank accounts, we’d all be better off. During my college years, people joked about the 5-year plan, implying the students were partying. In reality, many of those on the five-year plan we’re just readjusting after finding their true calling or after finding their initial major wasn’t what they thought it would be. Parents with the means can provide enrichment opportunities and exposure to many things PreK-12, but a fun robotics class isn’t the same as majoring in engineering.
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This was true of my '22’s experience. It’s very difficult for kids who don’t know exactly what they want to do or who are good in multiple things ( STEM and Humanities) and want to explore and narrow possibilities for two years first. This is particularly true if they don’t want to attend a liberal arts college.
I think giving people time to explore various fields would benefit society. So many people despise their jobs and hate Monday mornings.
If I look back to the 1980’s when I graduated high school only about 10-20% of kids knew what they wanted to be. And most of them even ended up in different fields. All have been successful but their paths were not direct. Even my engineering friend ended up in curriculum development. My Georgetown diplomat friend in tech sales, the would be doctor as a biology teacher, etc. etc. Only one, the French teacher ended up in that field and stayed.
I’d love to know how many students today actually end up working for at least ten years in a field which they chose as a college freshmen.
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This happens a lot in teaching K-12. I know many older teachers who love teaching, have the passion, knowledge etc…and slowly get “sidelined” to make room for younger teachers who cost less.
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A roundabout way for a student to do this is to start at a community college (and not be on the administrative clock to decide a major and with much less cost pressure) and then transfer to a four year college when ready to choose a major.
But that is not typically considered the desired path in the forum demographic.
Some four year colleges do have higher tuition for higher class standing.
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With the high cost of college I am an advocate of a rigorous high school education. I understand this opinion comes from a place of privilege. My kids attended a high school that offered a lot of AP classes and they did not have to work part-time. We discouraged study halls. We showed them how some schools gave college credit for certain scores and discussed what that could mean for them. We were consistent with our messaging concerning skill-building and future aspirations…and that doesn’t mean they didn’t have fun.
For the record I am not disparaging those who choose a different strategy. I only share what our thoughts were while raising them. They had no strong inclinations or talents that they wanted to pursue so rather than focusing on being a specialist, we suggested the idea of being a generalist of high quality…if that makes sense. And popular or not, college was viewed with vocation in mind.
I don’t know how big a factor salary played in their major and career selection, but I’m confident it was a consideration…and I make no judgment about it. Due to their aptitude, work ethic and a little luck they’re happy at this stage of their lives.
There is a lot of variation depending on which college you attend and which majors or types of majors you are considering. Some colleges admit by major or admit by school, make it difficult to change schools, or have selective admission to popular majors after matriculating. Others make it easy to change majors and have no direct restrictions on major selection.
However, even when there is no direct restriction, there can be indirect restrictions due to course requirements. For example, it’s common for engineering majors to require completing calculus to take physics, require completing physics to take engineering core, require completing engineering core to take engineering concentration, etc. If you don’t complete the core math/science foundation classes in the first 2 years, it’s often not possible to complete an engineering degree in 4 years. In may cases, even starting engineering in sophomore year is too late. In contrast certain other majors only require a relatively small number of courses that have no/few prerequisites, making it relatively easy to start taking major-specific courses late and still graduate in 4 years.
Everyone has to make a series of choices in life. There’s a cost, in both time and money, to putting off one of those decisions, which may outweigh any benefit of having more time to make that decision. IMO, all freedoms, including the flexibility to choose one’s major, should come with sufficient constraints so that the benefit outweighs the cost.
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All well and good in theory. But there are literally millions of kids who have no idea what they want to study yet still go on to college. Often they just pick something. And that is where the real cost is incurred. Once they realize its’ the wrong thing for them. This is also possibly the reason that many kids take more than 4 years to complete college.
I don’t understand the notion of having a “cost” for not knowing what one wants to study in college at least in year 1. There’s a huge difference between “putting off choices” and deciding between multiple interests. There are so many subjects not offered in high school but which are valid fields.
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This discussion is way off topic…but I’ll chime in anyway.
Our kids both went to colleges which had required core courses. Even our musician and engineer were required to take these core courses. And both said…they knew kids who actually switched out of music or engineering because something piqued their interest.
I fully support core courses…and that the schools our kids went to offered this was a plus.
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