Professor: ‘Follow your dreams’ is cruel advice [View all]

[cynatnite]

With graduation season in full swing, students across the nation are being told the key to success is to “follow your dreams.”

But Professor Lisa Wade of Occidental College argues the idealistic cliche has no real value to students — and verges on being harmful.

“I think it is actually kind of cruel to give that advice,” she said on HuffPost Live. “First, because a lot of students don’t know what they want to do and so they feel this incredible pressure to figure out what their passion is just at that one moment.”

“Second of all, I think it is just absurd to think that the majority of Americans are going to be able to follow their passions, to get paid to do what you love,” Wade continued. “Historically speaking, that has been incredibly rare and is still incredibly rare. So I think it sets students up for failure.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/02/professor-follow-your-dreams-is-cruel-advice/