BENGALURU : Juggle many careers: musician, educator, author, expert at keeping the Lego pieces just out of my cats’ reach (I’ve been told the last one isn’t recognised as a legitimate career, but I am fighting to change this). However, I don’t really have a job; that’s why I jumped at this offer to write a regular column.As a music educator, I work with many teens and pre-teens. And all of them seem to have one thing on their mind: “Should we cut back on extra-curriculars so that we can spend more time getting ready for the real world?”
Adults, it’s time we tell them that this big, scary “real world” doesn’t exist. Why are we trying to prepare kids for jobs that may not exist in a few decades? We think we’ve evolved, but we’re still pushing the message that they probably cannot make a living doing what they love to do.And that’s absolutely wrong. Take me, for instance. Was I great at math? Sure, depending on how you define “great” or how you define “math.” Did I get an engineering degree? Absolutely not. And what did I do with my master’s degree in law, diploma in Montessori education and (almost) Ph.D. in childhood music education? I became a glorified music teacher with access to great junk food (seriously, kids give the best presents).
The point is, I do what I love and I never once thought about having to choose between law and music. Things are overlapping in such interesting ways that if you put blinders on yourself, you will never actually discover what you can do. Take the many examples of people who are changing the world by putting their different lines of interest together. Chris Boyce is a scientist who uses MRIs to look at chemical reactors.
He applies this to pharmaceuticals, disaster preparedness, and mining. Lorin Crawford is a young researcher who works on statistics and genetics to solve problems caused by genetic disorders. And Brian May manages to be an astrophysicist and lead guitarist of Queen (no pressure – geddit?). Careers have evolved, job requirements have changed, and people have opened their minds to everything interesting and disruptive. Through it all, one thing has remained constant: only hard work and genuine passion will get you where you want to go.
So don’t calculate where your interests might take you. More importantly, don’t limit yourself to one interest. If you love art and biology, you could develop anatomical diagrams. If you love math and playing the drums, you could be the first researcher to develop a formula based on mridangam patterns. And if you take on any of these suggestions and win a Nobel Prize, you will name me in your acceptance speech.
The author is a singer, songwriter, educator and social entrepreneur