Does Chasing Your Passion, and Wanting to Do Different Things, Require Basic Education?
Does chasing your passion, and wanting to do different things, require basic education? Here’s the answer to your questions!
Akshay, my friend’s son, is doing his B.E. Degree in Computer Science and Engineering at a reputed institution. I met him at a family function and asked how his college life was going.
He started pouring his emotions(anger, frustration, etc), and basically his helplessness. The issue is that he does not like coding and feels weak in that skill, but my friend has forced him to join an Engineering course, that too, in the CSE programme. Now, with this aversion to the course, he faces one or the other challenges and is always unhappy.
He says he has many ideas on self-employment like freelancing, trading, etc., through which he can earn his livelihood. The same is the case with one of my relative boys, Sanjeevi who is interested and talented in photography and wants to take up that as his profession. He says he does not want to continue his degree course and wishes to register for a startup and do the business now.
If we look into this deeply, there are not only this Akshay or Sanjeevi but many more Akshays and Sanjeevis doing something that is not what they wanted to do! Every one of you might have heard such sharings from someone or the other, haven’t you?
A few days ago, I met Mr. Laven Lokesh, the founder of Plant Green Inertia which is a training company. When he said he started this company just after completing his engineering degree as a startup I had a few questions to ask him.
The first one was what was his parents’ response when he informed them about starting a business. He said they did not accept that proposal itself and advised him to go for a job. He went for a job for some time but after a few months, he quit his job and finally started this company which is now expanded to include technical and entrepreneur training.
I asked his opinion on youngsters who want to start a business even before doing a degree. They have various ways of earning like investments, freelancing, etc. He said he also wanted to become a public speaker but his parents did not accept. They advised him to complete a BE degree and go for a job. He did his BE in Mechanical Engineering and started working. However, he was not satisfied with his job, and with his mentors’ guidance, he started this training company as a startup focusing on entrepreneurship and public speaking training.
Then came my next question: what if he had started the same without doing the B.E.or any other degree?
He says, that’s the time when he developed the contacts and good networking which helps him now to expand his business. The knowledge and experience gained during that period give him the confidence to face certain tough situations in his business now.
Yesterday, I happened to meet Suvajit Mandal, fondly called Rani, an interesting character who is a painting artist at Dharamshala. His native is West Bengal and lives here in the mountains of Himachal, taking up painting as his profession. The same question arose in me, whether his parents encouraged him for this. He also faced a tough time in convincing his parents. As per their advice, he had completed his degree and joined a company but was not happy with the monotonous work he had to do there. He quit that job and came to Dharamshala as there were more people here performing various art forms. Now, in these seven years, he had developed himself as a most sought-after painting artist!
My learning from these two successful entrepreneurs / self employed who pursued their passion is that:
We can find many interesting ways to make money at a young age, but doing a formal education, at least up to an Undergraduate degree, will give us a good foundation for the business that we are going to take up. Also, that period is an opportunity for us to develop the skill set required for our plan!
Our young boys and girls may have a different perspective on life and the world is also changing slowly but not completely. People started accepting their passion for doing different things, at the same time, if they have a good basic education they can expect a warm welcome! What do you say?
Youngsters, if they are thinking differently, having a different passion, the struggle they face in convincing their parents and others is more than the struggle of pursuing their passion.
I will share my personal experience with my daughter in my next blog😊
