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robotresearchertoday at 6:01 PM2 repliesview on HN

Are you also disillusioned with professional sports, music, acting, and art? Most people who study and aspire in these fields don't make a sustainable living in it either. It's a tough competition. There's work and luck involved, as well as talent.

I think most grad students understand this, and it sounds like it was communicated clearly to you in a timely way.


Replies

SkyBelowtoday at 6:16 PM

>Are you also disillusioned with professional sports, music, acting, and art?

Not the person you were asking, but I think we need to double down on disillusionment in these. I've spoken to too many kids who dreamed of careers in this well into high school, often at cost to other academic paths, when their performance already clearly showed they weren't going this route. Sadly, it is hard to be strong about correcting kids because it is seen as not believing in them and not encouraging them.

As disillusioned as one might become in academia, the path one is on to get there tends to better align with setting students up for a successful career outside of it compared to the ones you listed.

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59percentmoretoday at 6:22 PM

Those other fields are ones in which there is a lot of readily-available support to pursue them as hobbies, without going broke or being put on a three-letter-agency list somewhere.