<p>I know a overwhelming amount of people who did engineering for the sole purpose of having a job and decent pay. Were they math lovers, nope. Did they love problem solving, nope. They just wanted a job, a job that could provide a stable career and a stable income. They also didn’t want to do back breaking work, wanted a desk job, or something that wasn’t physical. I haven’t met too many people my age, maybe only professor’s who say that “this is what I love to do with my life, this is what gets me up in the morning”. I don’t know if it is being around people who have a lack of interests, or it is just a generational thing. As far as doing what you love, I can honestly say, that doing what I love, has nothing to do with any related career discipline or any college major. My parent’s never mentioned anything about job satisfaction, all they ever said was “get a job, and get one that pays, and pays well”. The fact is people, if I had a choice between working and not working while still doing what I love, I wouldn’t work. Ok, shoot me. For some people, they may love what they do, me I can careless. I do it to make an income. I do find it somewhat interesting, but still in all, am I in love with it, nope. Hell no, I’d rather be riding my motorcycle and traveling than being in a office wasting hours of my life making a living. I don’t know if it is because I was always around people who wouldn’t work unless they had to, or worked because they wanted to afford things. No one in my family, and I mean no one, works because they like what they do. If they won the lottery they would quit. Or, if they could get paid there salary and just do what they wanted, they wouldn’t go back to work. Honestly, If you like what you do, and you find happiness in what you do for a living, and that is your passion, I am happy for you, I wish I could say the same. But honestly, the only thing that excites me is my pay check, and what I can do with that. I work so that I can do what I love, and that I can have a life. Not the other way around. Work is not my life, it is not my passion. If it is yours, again, I wish I could say the same. But if I had a choice between working and taking a trip on my Kawasaki Ninja around the US, hitting town by town with no worries, no cares, just for fun and enjoyment, I would. Hell, I would kill to do that. You know who my idol is, Valentino Rossi. If you don’t know who I am talking about, wiki him. I would like to live that man’s life. That would be my dream, in my opinion, that is the best job in the world, but that is me, that is my passion. I literally day dream about being a pro Moto GP racer, or being even being someone like Mario Andretti, because I like cars too. That was always my dream as a kid, and it still is today. If you think that is criminal of me, then that is fine. But in my view, If I had to choose between analyzing well logs or being on the race track at Daytona, you know what I would choose. In all honesty guys, if you can’t live your dream, making a lot of money, and affording things to get as close to your dream as possible is ok. For example, someone who’s passion is flying, but study’s law to afford costly fees, own there own plane, ect. Who cares, it is there life, if they want to worship the almighty dollar let them have it, obviously we know IBs aren’t doing what they do for passion, lol, that would be a lie from hell, lol.</p>
<p>Aibarr, that was a great post, I wish my job was what I loved to do, and your story about your husband is great, I wish I could say what I did for a living was my life’s passion. That is very inspiring. I wish my family had the same attitude, because they don’t. Maybe if I was raised that way, it would have been different, I don’t know.</p>
<p>lol, uaprophet, if I made several million in one year as an IB I would quit, and then travel the world the rest of my life, hitting moto circuits and drifting competitions. That would be my dream job, lol.</p>
<p>Let me just say this… we should not encourage kids to become writers just because it is their “passion”. They may look up to writers such as JK Rowling, Brian Jacques, etc, but what are the chances? It’s probably better to choose a more stable career, such as engineering, but not limited to, and then do whatever passions you have during your own free time.</p>
<p>The luckiest people are the ones who can actually become famous authors and the ones who choose a stable job that they can enjoy.</p>
<p>As for me, I would rather choose accounting over engineering.</p>
<p>That is a good job as well, whatever floats your boat.</p>
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<p>And what if you’re the next Charles Dickens and you’re an incredible talent and you love to write, but you chicken out and decide to be an accountant instead? You get one shot at life, and you spend most of your waking life at work… no kidding. Are you really going to do something that you don’t really like, but that’s stable?</p>
<p>Your answer might be “yes” because you like that stability, but at least give some significant consideration to the fields you’d passionately pursue. If you have the courage to go for it, really consider going for it.</p>
<p>Although I’m a fan of the saying “follow your passion and the money will follow” I still think this saying needs some context. I think it’s a fairly rose-colored view of the world to assume that one’s passion will necessarily provide one with gainful employment. Unless one’s passion is about a skill that is in demand, I would be careful.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to differentiate between career moves and “passions” that can be pursued outside of work, as a hobby.</p>
<p>Engineers are underpaid unless they own the company. If you are in Silicon Valley and working for a secret startup of 12 people that might get bought by Google, that’s one thing. But being just another engineer at a traditional software place won’t lead to any special kind of pay. This is why engineers are going to finance jobs. In general, I think techies are just going to total take over the financial world and the traditional business type majors aren’t going to be as useful as the used to be.</p>
<p>That said, for exceptionally talented (at least software engineers) you can definitely get paid crazy money at a traditional place like Microsoft. They apparently have some sort of level system and as you climb it (extremely difficult) you can get paid kind of ridiculously well.</p>