Passion or Possibilities

Apr 21, 2022

Last week UVA President James Ryan welcomed new first-year UVA parents. He wished for their students to "find their passion and sense of purpose" while at UVA. Hmmm. What does one do when they work for the president, yet disagree with his advice? I recently read a blog post from a friend and mentor, Walt Shill (Friday Thoughts), in which Walt advised eight easy steps when your boss is wrong. Read it--all eight apply. I'll just illustrate with the first one: "the boss is right."

My beef: I'm not a "find your passion" advisor. I think finding your one life's passion as an eighteen year old (or 40-year-old, or 60-year-old for that matter) is quite difficult, intimidating and immobilizing. One of the key reasons students avoid the career center is "they don't know what they are passionate about, so how can we help." But, keeping Walt's advice in mind, "the boss is right," I explored this concept with some colleagues. Did they agree with him or me? Better yet, how could he be right? My colleagues helped me think differently: she can agree with the president through her take on finding your passion by pluralizing it--finding your passions. Find things you get excited about. Find things that you want to know more about. Passions (plural) is actually less intimidating that passion (singular) because high-achieving students are so afraid of getting "it" wrong. Passions (plural) allows the freedom to explore and name many passions, without having to give one answer and be wrong.

Okay, maybe the boss was right. Finding their passions (plural) is definitely something I wish for college students. The career center can help. Start with PathwayU and then come see an advisor in the Career Center.

Ask for me (if I'm still here after the boss reads this).