About Choice of Profession and the Role of Interest in It

As I already wrote I gained a lot of knew experiences the last days during the IK. Especially with regard to making the decision for a Master program. During all the thoughts about what I want to do later I came to an insight that I have not seen in any advising text.

Often you are advised to study something which you like and in which you are interested, instead of looking for job possibilities and the income. I agree with this. However, the question is not just in what you are interested, but also how you are interested in it!

What is my point? Maybe it gets a bit clearer with an example: I am interested in many of the results of behavioral science. Nevertheless, I am not studying behavioral science, because I am not really interested in the work to get these results. The imagination to watch animals for hours and making detailed notes meanwhile seems not very attractive to me.

Therefore it is a difference whether you are interested in the results in an area of research or in doing the research yourself. This does not only apply to the research, but of course to all sorts of activities and jobs. (For example the process of programming is a activity where the process of doing it myself is interesting and makes fun – not just the final program.)

I suppose the great art is to get the balance between these to areas right. That means finding a job where you are interested in the results and the interest will motivate you. At the same time the path of getting there should also be interesting. Even if a more boring path can be endured for a motivating goal and also the other way round it seems to me important to keep both in mind. At the moment I am trying to figure out how much and in which way I am interested in different things.