Friday, December 12, 2008 14:14
Studying for passion, not preparation
In Eddie Choo, Youth Focus • 980 views • 12 Comments
By Eddie Choo / Youth Writer
IT USED TO be that whenever I meet new friends, I would ask them about their education, about what they were interested in, and what their future job might be.
I used this topic as a convenient conversation starter, and if a person had no idea what to do, I would pose as some sort of an amateur career consultant, and try to find out what a person could do.
But my own experience in life has taught me something else, and since then, I have avoided asking that “what are you going to do in the future” question. A large part of my reason for not doing that anymore comes from my experience in education even as I am continually entrenched in the ideology of Singapore’s socio-cultural expectations.
The expectation is this: We have always thought that what we study ought to be related to our occupation after we graduate. For some careers, you do need a very clear idea of what you are doing and why. This is especially so for doctors, lawyers and architects especially, where there exists a set of professional standards.
For these people, the intrinsic motivation might be clearer – the kid might have decided from very young that he wanted to heal diseases, the lawyer might have a strong sense of justice, and for the architect, the desire to see beauty manifested in buildings.
Those are, as you might observe, very naïve, philosophical ideals about what people ought to be. In our modern reality, people are also driven as much by the material benefit that they might obtain, even though I suspect that the enjoyment derived from doing these jobs ought to far outweigh the monetary benefit they might receive.
Or that is what I like to believe.
What you study may not be what you will do
However I’ve come to this realisation that what I study now, content-wise, has actually got very little to do with what I might do in the future. In other words, even though I am working towards a chemistry major right now, my future career might not necessarily be in the chemical industry, even though people tend to have this idea that what you study ought to be what you work – which I think is a wrong conception that ought to be throw away, instead of hanging on to that notion and suffer for their entire lives.
The truth is that, most of us wouldn’t be applying what we learn in our careers. We would be handling things like administrative and executive duties, positions where knowledge of our specialty is hardly required at all. If we were only allowed jobs where the full range of our academic knowledge was required, there would be very few jobs out there at all.
After all, which career, other than a scientist or teacher, would require the knowledge of molecular orbital theory (for chemists)? It seems that the more important thing would be that we learn how to learn. Our time in university should have taught us to learn how to understand things, apply concepts, solve problems, and having a good imagination.
More generally, studies would usually require that we learn how to manage our lives – how to manage the information that we take in and organise it, and how to contextualise and interpret information in ways understandable to ourselves and to others.
We also would learn how to speak clearly, and present information in coherent and concise ways for others to understand. Along the way, we might also learn other psychological skills, such as managing expectations and anxieties. These are things that are part of any professional career. Once these skills are acquired, they will stay with us for the most part of our lives.
Studying for passion
We should change the way we think about education and how it should contribute towards our future. Maybe it is just the way the education system in our country has turned out, but we are starting to realise that the core assumption – that what we study will be our career – does not hold true at all. Just as we can’t predict what might happen to us the next day, we cannot expect to know what we might be doing in the future. Instead, what we do now in the present will prepare us for the unexpected.
We should not study in anticipation for our working future. We should study instead, for intrinsic interest – for the passion that we might have for a particular subject. But let me clarify, by doing what we love, we should end up becoming good at what we do.
It is the passion for excellence then prepares us for the future. Faced with this, we realise that the subject that we study does not matter, as long as we learn to pick up the skills that will enable us to adapt to challenges in the workplace.
The jobs of the future are going to change anyway. They are going to be more challenging, requiring us to think beyond our fields of specialty and, to think beyond our comfort zones. Faced with such a situation, our expert knowledge will not help us very much in that kind of working environment. On the contrary, focusing on our own area of specialty will restrict us in the way we think about problem-solving.
The important thing is to master the skills that are being acquired, and to be good with them, which require much practice. A person would definitely do all that if the material that he is studying is of genuine interest to him in the first place.
This brings me to the conclusion: do what you love!
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12 Comments
hansolo
Jackson
In the past, I used to fantasise a lot about what I’m gonna be in future – policeman, banker, teacher etc. Now I stick to one principle – do what you can do, a degree of any discipline is ok.
I may not be doing something I enjoy right now, probably for survival’s sake, but at least I’m doing something righteous and not against my own conscience, not against the law. I stand by what I do.
pugdragon
I wanted to take up a degree in philosophy. I researched on it & found out that some people are complaining that their degrees in philosophy ain’t valuable enough (in the eyes of employers) to earn ‘em jobs with reasonable salaries for a degree holder.
A degree in liberal arts is definitely interesting, to people who’s interested in it anyway, but is unlikely to aid one very much in high-paying job seeking. The rewards are possibly in the forms of self-enrichment & self-fulfilment & not financial. You could end up never recovering the $ you spent on the degree. But you gained a whole new level of understanding of the subject & yourself. If one can afford it, I’d say, it’s $ well-spent. After all, life is but a few decades. Lucky ones would live for a century.
I am doing a degree in Philosophy. Because i like it. But like it or not people are going to ask you time and time again, ‘why do you want to study such a subject with no future?’
For most of us doing Liberal Arts and/or Humanities, studying what you love is maybe a choice but many pragmatic people see it as a bad choice. Good for you if you like science and are doing it, because people think study that got future one. There’s still no place for the arts in Singapore (you know why Arts students are looked down on in JC by Science students now?)
Easier to love what you do, but lazier to love what you do.
Tan Kin Lian
Hi
I wish to share my approach towards studying, over the past 50 years.
I enjoy studying topics that are useful and interesting. If I have to study it for my examinations, I find out how to make it interesting. It can be a skill that I can use, such as mathematics or science. I also enjoy history and philosophy, as they are useful in guiding our values in life.
I do not bother about studying to pass examinations. If I find the subject to be interesting and useful, I find that passing examinations is easy. I never bother about 10 year series.
Over the years, there were many occasions where I thought that I would fail the examination, as I did not prepare well. To my surprise, I passed these examinations.
During my time, I had to do many essay questions. As I understood the general principles, I was able to give a reply that the examiner could understand. Even if my answers were not exactly correct (based on the facts), I must have got points for explaining the key principles. So I passed.
I continue to adop tthis approach in learning today. I learned things that are useful. If I have to read an article, I prefer first to read a summary, or the first sentence in each paragraph. This gives me a broad idea. On the second round, I drilled down to read the paragraphs that are interesting.
Eddie Choo describes it as the “passion” of studying. I agree thta this is more important than studying to pass examinations.
Raoul Alwani
Eddie,
Great article. I love how you challenge the basic assumption that most young people (and their parents) have, that what you study will ultimately become your career.
The fact is that it doesn’t, but we are constantly bombarded with questions like “Oh you’re studying philosophy/anthropology/etc/etc? What are you going to do with that?”
Such a question has roots in the immigrant culture and the need for economic survival.
I have more thoughts to add, but will do so later. Good job in bringing this up.
Arix
#6,
The great Immigrant Culture in this world is the United States of America (USA). And I’m not particularly sure that the same questions come up in the USA.
I think the questions come up here because we have sinicized ourselves too much (despite the official multilingual policy). Pragmatism is part of Chinese culture, but not Malay or Indian culture, but the Malays and Indians have kind of gotten absorbed into parts of the Chinese culture.
smallvoice585
Dear Eddie Choo,
I congratulate you for having written an excellent article.
But I wish to point out 2 things:
(1) The aim of education up to O Level or JC Level should be to train you in your thinking skills, foundational knowledge, and basic life competencies. The content of learning is not so important. The problem in Singapore is that these objectives were never clearly stated nor achieved. So most students end up merely trying to master content in order to ace examinations. As a result, most students end up as good as not being educated! This explains why many Singaporeans end up devoid of critical thinking, lacking appropriate social behaviour and deficient in morality despite “excellent” exam results.
(2) At Polytechnic and University levels and beyond, the content of what you learn becomes more important. At these levels, you are supposed to be more specialized in your studies and you cannot escape their relevance to your intended future career. The trouble in Singapore is that young people have little passion in their lives and even at this level, they have no idea what their life goals are.
It can be surmised that the mediocrity of Singapore society is the result of our poor education system.
someday
a lot of parents force their kids to study or the kid give himself too much stress until they have serious mental problems.
this is what i heard from some parents which they saw what happen to some kids when i chat with them as i work in retail.
1 nurse also told me there are cases of these in the imh also.
very pitiful and sad.
someday
now degree is not enough.
not even masters and phd.
as there are more and more phd.
now the ultimate target is to be a prof.
Zefly (aka Joshua Chiang)
For the young peeps. Study what you love.
Do what your heart tells you. You may not start out richer than your pals. You may die poorer than your peers. You may take longer to buy that handphone you wanted. But it will all work out. Trust me.
K Das
Concepts like community over self and obeisance to authority have become a set culture instilled in people from the very young so much so they are unable to think and speak spontaneously or with self-confidence except for a small segment of people in the upper level of the private sector and those in the admin service. Our educationally drilled people feel like the fish out of water when faced with unfamiliar settings both locally and abroad and in interacting. with strangers and foreigners. Pursuing education according to the economic needs of the country as defined by the Government and attaching a utilitarian value to it are by-products of this culture.
Doing what you love is easy.
The problem is:
1) You don’t know what you love do.
2) What you love to do changes with time.
3) What you love to do doesn’t pay the bills.
It’s easier to love what you do.