Mike Rowe to College Grads: ‘Don’t Follow Your Passion’

This is what young people need to hear. I think colleges fill their little beans with visions of loving every minute of work, and the promotions coming fast along with never ending pay increases.
Mike Rowe hit the nail on the head, you never know what is going to spark an interest and it may not be what you studied in college.

Don’t follow your passion.

“Look, if we’re talking about your hobby, by all means let your passion lead you,” Rowe says in a video posted on PragerU.com. “But when it comes to making a living, it’s easy to forget the dirty truth: Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it.

“And just because you’ve earned a degree in your chosen field, doesn’t mean you’re gonna find your ‘dream job.’”

“But their imaginary existence just might keep you from exploring careers that offer a legitimate chance to perform meaningful work and develop a genuine passion for the job you already have,” Rowe adds.

www.bodyshopbusiness.com...

Seriously Mike Rowe needs to make a speech at EVERY High School and College graduating ceremony. It'll kill him, but what a true public service!

He's been crusading for a number if years about the viability of making a very nice living in the trades and I'd love to see him finally gain the traction he needs to make better progress.

a reply to: Caver78

Working skilled trades for most of my career, there are few that want to get into the mess and hard physical work that skilled trades can be.

He's coming up on Tucker now

a reply to: PepeTalk

What?

“And just because you’ve earned a degree in your chosen field, doesn’t mean you’re gonna find your ‘dream job.’”

People with college degrees already know this, you learn this quickly or go hungry.

What Rowe is saying is nothing new. No one anticipated that having a degree preps you for being a waiter/bartender/barista, or working in the food services industry.

There is a difference between following your passion Mike and paying the bills.

I have countless friends who wasted daddy's money by majoring in crap like theatre and philosophy and social sciences.

Now most of them are living with daddy again or doing a job completely unrelated to their degree, like manager at Starbucks.

a reply to: cenpuppie

Do you think college students know that? I know once they get out into the real world they know that, but while attending?

The colleges need to keep the fallacy that if you go to college you get good job going. More and more college is a yolk of debt around a under employed youngin's neck.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: PepeTalk

What?

He was the next guest on Tucker Carlson

Mike Rowes testimony for Congress about the skills gap facing the country. He makes excellent points.

a reply to: seasonal

“But their imaginary existence just might keep you from exploring careers that offer a legitimate chance to perform meaningful work and develop a genuine passion for the job you already have,” Rowe adds.

What kind of advice is that? The exact opposite can also be argued. There are plenty of people working dead-end jobs that they absolutely hate & that give the person no personal fulfillment whatsoever. I've known far too many people who had to drink alcohol every day after work just to deal with their crappy jobs & needless stress. Add in family and those people may not have any time at all for hobbies, with them ending up as little more than "corporate slaves".

It's no wonder why people start going bald at an early age, have heart problems & high blood pressure, become alcoholics, become bitter & resentful, etc. Maybe if they were actually finding happiness in what they do for a living, they wouldn't see it as "work" in the first place. After all, we typically spend more waking hours at work & with work colleagues than with family & friends. So if you're spending most of your waking hours among people you can't stand while doing crap you don't care for, of course it will lead to negativity, bitterness, and health issues.

And ironically, it sounds like he's telling graduates to ignore personally fulfilling career paths in exchange for jobs that help society more (aka "meaningful work"). Community service over personal freedom. Hmmm... I thought you guys were against communism? In most forms of communism, graduates have their career paths chosen for them based on what govt (and their standardized tests) determine they'd do most productively. That's why test scores are so critical in those regimes; it's literally the difference between being assigned cushy office jobs and back breaking manual labor.

The advice I give is for people to find a way to monetize their dreams. That way they can spend their time doing what they love while also earning a living. For example, I first got in the music biz when I was in high school. My goal was simple; make at least $300 a week doing music related stuff. That was just as good or better than the factory jobs and entry level jobs around here, but I was spending that time doing what I loved. That mindset has allowed me to travel and meet people from all over the world, while many of my friends & family have never even left the country and act jealous because of my "adventures" LOL. I've worked "real" jobs too, but I'd never give up my years in music.

From my perspective, people like Rowe are stuck in the old economy. He doesn't seem to realize just how easy it is to make money now, with things like running blogs, youtube channels, app making, etc, etc. He should be encouraging graduates to learn business skills so they can monetize their dreams, while also encouraging them to learn the many opportunities available to American graduates.

How many of you know that many countries will allow recent American grads to go there cost free as a type of "exchange program"? And that others pay premium salaries for native English speakers to come teach English at their schools and universities? Some countries even have special work and/or business visas for Americans which give all kinds of business perks to us. So if your dream was to do scuba diving in country X, there may be programs that subsidize that dream or allow you to become a scuba diving apprentice in that country.

Wealthy private school students learn about these kinds of opportunities, but public school students rarely even hear about them. Instead, we get advice like "give up on your dreams and focus on jobs you hate but make a living". Then people here complain when foreigners come in, take their preferred jobs, and succeed at them lol.

Ok, rant off. I had a guidance counselor and at least 2 teachers try to get me to give up on my dreams. I thank God that I didn't listen to them.

a reply to: seasonal

Currently part of the problem is that if you have a felony you CAN'T apprentice in a trade union. The problem with this is many who did really dumb stuff (non-violent) and are rehabilitated are now also locked out of pursuing a decent career.
It's past time that for people with a track record of being reformed that apprenticeship programs modified some of their more archaic rules.

originally posted by: cenpuppie

“And just because you’ve earned a degree in your chosen field, doesn’t mean you’re gonna find your ‘dream job.’”

People with college degrees already know this, you learn this quickly or go hungry.

What Rowe is saying is nothing new. No one anticipated that having a degree preps you for being a waiter/bartender/barista, or working in the food services industry.

There is a difference between following your passion Mike and paying the bills.

As someone who works at a university and has opportunity to speak with graduates:

No they do not. They live with their parents (and the parents support them) and lament not getting a job in their field.

Agreed Mike Rowe is not saying anything new, but right now he's the only one with some celebrity saying it. It should be said by many more people, including those who teach/ support the classes these individuals major in.

a reply to: randomtangentsrme

No they do not. They live with their parents (and the parents support them) and lament not getting a job in their field.

It is why I said you learn this quickly or go hungry. When you don't have mom and dad to fall back on, you take what you can get.

Living at their parents house, they aren't going hungry are they?

a reply to: seasonal

The colleges need to keep the fallacy that if you go to college you get good job going. More and more college is a yolk of debt around a under employed youngin's neck.

That I agree with, 100%.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I think you are misreading Rowe's message. For some people college just doesn't work, whether it's their temperament or financial reasons. Had Dirty Jobs been on TV when I was a younger I'd of gone nuts looking at all the possibilities!!!

High school counselors suck. Can't emphasize that enough they have NO IDEA what jobs are out there and are generally useless.

Rowe is just opening the door with information so people have choices. Nothing more. For people who this appeals to he's started a foundation giving out tools and paying tuition for people who need help and want to pursue this type of career. There are all sorts of ancillary jobs related to the trades as well and all needed. But most people don't hear about them. Rowe is just starting the conversation, maybe helping some people.
Not a bad thing.

profoundlydisconnected.com...

I saw Mike Rowe giving the closing keynote at CIsco Live 2 years ago and he was one of the better speakers I have seen.

He was really focused on the idea that people who say "work smarter not harder" are destined to never win while those that "work harder and smarter" are the ones to succeed..

Couldnt agree more..

I can tell you that when I meet folks coming out of college at my place of employment it is amazing what they expect having not earned anything yet. I think part of that comes from the belief of "I have a specialized college degree so Im something special even though I haven't done anything yet professionally" which is sort of in line with what the OP is saying.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Good points.

a reply to: Caver78

Very true, I did HVAC at a local community/state college. I did not like nor care about all the english 101,103 then social interactions 103-104.......For me college was a necessary evil. I needed it to get a job at Coke then I moved on to other larger and more involved industries.

If you are a good mechanic you can make $70,000 a year. And very few people (egocentric jerk bosses) will F with you because very few do what you can do. And replacing you right now means hiring someone who is 60 or hiring someone who is 19.

a reply to: seasonal

As others have said.... This is nothing new yet Mike Rowe hits the nail on the head. Here is something that I wrote in a reply to a thread many moons ago on this site to someone who was considering dropping their education in engineering in order to pursue "art."

My two (or three) cents.....


1) Pursue the engineering career. Do it without hesitation and without a second though. Being a starving-artist (or starving anything) is fun and exciting in your early twenties but I assure you.... being broke as you get older is not only NOT adventurous... it is completely exhausting. (For the moment, I'll leave out all the things about settling down and putting roots down and all that). Also, the longer the time span between when you earn your degree (and license if you pursue one) and the time you try to use it decreases the value of that degree exponentially.

2) Your art seems fine. There is skill there. To be completely candid, I'm not really an artsy-fartsy person so take my opinion of art with an ample helping of salt. Your pieces are nice but nothing I would particularly spend considerable money on. It reminds me a lot of the 'art' some of my high school friends used to make after "partaking." They would zone out and concentrate and... well there ya go.

3) Nothing in the world can (or should) stop you from continuing to produce your art while holding down a more conventional job and pursuing a more conventional career. You can still keep at it and ya never know.... something could happen from that.

I think it's important to know what "dreams" (I think) Mike Rowe is talking about. If someone's dream is to become a doctor or some other profession that has a greater chance of providing a living wage (or better), then OF COURSE go chase that dream down.

That being said, I think if someone's dream is to become a famous painter or musician..... keep that as a side gig (or hobby, as Rowe indicated) and follow something that will provide a person (and his/her family).

Generally my advice is to split the difference (in a way). Find something that you like ENOUGH and pays at least ENOUGH and has ENOUGH of a future. You shouldn't do something you hate, even if it pays the bills but you shouldn't live in your own world with your head in the clouds and invest entirely on "hoping" that you make it as a ___________.