Upper School History Teacher Lilas Lane sinks into the worn white couch in her apartment in Sherman Oaks, eager to unwind after a long day as an actress trying to make it big in Hollywood. Lane turns on the TV to see her face staring back at her, boasting about the newest developments made to the Dyson Vacuum. She turns the TV off and stares at her reflection in the black screen, questioning if this was still the life she wanted for herself. Lane, who pursued acting professionally in Texas and California before becoming an educator, said she would not have been fulfilled following a traditional career path at that point in her life.
“At that moment, I wouldn’t have been happy having a conventional life where I just went and got a house in the suburbs and worked a job,” Lane said. “That would not have satisfied me. I really did enjoy playing a role, getting into character and the adventure of being on set.”
Despite her genuine passion, Lane said she felt misled on what constituted a reasonable career path.
“The era that I grew up in, [during] the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s was very much ‘pursue your dream’ and ‘live your passion’,” Lane said. “This idea of having a normal life where you’re just taking care of yourself and happy wasn’t seen as something to aspire to. Not everyone can become a big movie star. That’s just not reality. I feel like my generation was sold a bill of goods about what’s realistic.”
The predicament of choosing a career path that balances passion and profit is one that consumes many. 48% of Americans reported feeling high levels of pressure to make the right decision when it came to their college major, according to a study done by Grand Canyon University. When asked which factors affected their decision, 90% of Harvard-Westlake students selected passion and 76% said potential income, according to a Chronicle poll.
People with computer science degrees have an unemployment rate of 7.5%. In comparison, only 3% of art history degree graduates are unemployed, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mattin Tasbihgoo ’27, who plans to major in his passion, computer engineering, said it is incredibly important to be interested in what you’re studying.
“If you want to study something you’re not passionate about, then you’re just wasting four years of your life,” Tasbihgoo said. “You have to go to four more years of school for something you don’t even care about. College is all about focusing on what you care about, with the hopes of applying it to your life someday.”
71% of adults believe job satisfaction is extremely important to living a fulfilling life, according to the Pew Research Center. Luke Rascoff ’27, who wants to study political science and pursue a career in politics, said while his potential earnings are pertinent to the discussion of his future career, the purpose he finds in his passion is more important.
“My impression so far is that the potential positions that I would be interested in are not particularly well paying,” Rascoff said. “The idea that I could reach a pinnacle of career success but not have the financial success that my peers might have definitely does factor into my thinking. It’s not fantastic, but I think that, at the end of the day, it’s gonna [come down to] if I have a passion that is significant enough for me to be able to override all of that, and I think that I do.”
Joshua Massey ’26, who is committed to Wesleyan College and plans to major in education, said he wants to be a history teacher. Massey said he values personal fulfillment in his career.
“If I become a teacher, I’m not going to be living large, but there’s nothing I feel I could really buy that would make up for having a bad career,” Massey said. “I will live with my work. It will be how I spend most of my time.”
Barron Linnekens ’26, who is committed to the University of Washington in St. Louis and plans to major in Business, holds a different set of priorities. Linnekens said it is important to choose a career that will allow you to provide for the people in your life that depend on you.
“If you are presented two worlds where it’s do a job that you hate, but be able to provide for your family and you get to have fun when you’re off the clock, or do a job that you enjoy, but your kid is wondering where their dinner will come from that night, I think you have to pick the first option every time,” Linnekens said. “Your life is about you until you bring in other people. Then, you have to provide for other people. And once you have to do that, doing what makes you happy becomes less important.”
The average American appears to prioritize money similarity, with approximately 60% of Americans that chose a degree based on their passions feeling regretful, according to Grand Canyon University. If given a do-over, 68% of graduates would get a degree with better career prospects, according to a survey from the American Institute of CPAs. 56% of Harvard-Westlake students said they worry that they will regret choosing the college major they do, according to a Chronicle poll. Linnekens said he is prioritizing functionality in his decision to major in business.
“The vast majority of degrees fall into one of two categories: super niche or useless,” Linnekens said. “I obviously wanted to stay away from those. Because I don’t have a clear [career] goal, I thought that a versatile degree would be better than a niche one. It’s a reliable thing that will keep producing. These days, people focus a lot more on what they want to do and what they enjoy as opposed to production. That’s not something I want to fall into.”
Lulu Aridi ’27 said although she originally wanted to major in something she was passionate about, she has become more logical in her career choices.
“My whole life, I’ve been interested in creative writing and thought it was something I wanted to pursue,” Aridi said. “Now, my plan is to major in business or entrepreneurship, and then maybe take a course in creative writing. I’m not really planning on pursuing it anymore because a degree in creative writing doesn’t mean that you’re going to become a New York Times bestseller. Business is way more stable and it’ll give me a better future.”
Lane said despite never thinking it would happen, her priorities changed as she got older, and she started desiring different things for her life.
“I imagined that the desire to be free, that desire for adventure and to pursue my passion would always be strong and prevalent, and it wasn’t,” Lane said. “At a certain point, I was like, ‘I want stability. I want a place where I feel safe and secure, and have the time to devote to my garden’. Those things that were anathema to me when I was young, all of a sudden started to become reality. You change as you get older. Remember that you might not always feel how you feel right in this moment, and make sure you’re setting yourself up to be free and not stuck.”
