Finding your passion
Disclaimer: I’m a nerd.
Where it starts
Regardless of age, the path to finding your passion begins as an incredibly ambiguous one. For the sake of simplicity, this post will follow a path similar to mine. My experiences are unique to me, and everyone experiences their journey differently. My goal here is to share how I’ve found a passion of mine: software development.
Whether you’re a college student or just interested in exploring what’s out there, the process of discovering your passion may start at an absolute ground zero. This was my experience.
It might seem overwhelming, but the good news is that, with persistence, you’ll eventually find something. Maybe you’ll find multiple passions. The key is to stay curious.
I started out my journey as a Personal Trainer. The thought process for me was that I enjoyed working out, so maybe I’ll enjoy coaching others to do the same.
Your first stop
If you’re committed to the process, you will also need to be honest with yourself (and sometimes with others). When you find something you’re passionate about, it will feel consistently enjoyable — it will feel right, as corny as that sounds.
It took me about eight months of working as a Personal Trainer to realize it wasn’t a passion of mine, and that’s if you don’t include the time I spent studying for the certification exam.
If I wasn’t honest with myself, I would have spent more time stumbling down this path than I should have. Luckily, for me, I already sort of knew what a passion could feel like. Growing up I played several sports, and I was likely only passionate about a couple. Because of this I could somewhat understand what was and was not a potential passion of mine.
At this time I was still fairly young, so I couldn’t be entirely sure, but I was curious enough to find something that brought that desire out of me.
It’s probably not a detour
I’ve seen many people fear getting lost during this journey. This could often be enough for some people to call it quits and settle — and maybe that’s fine. You don’t necessarily need a passion, but if you’re a passionate person (and you prefer it that way) then don’t give up.
If you’re not constantly on the lookout, you may miss an opportunity to progress through this phase of the process. Towards the end of my stunt as a Personal Trainer, I started engaging with the gym’s Web Developer more. I remember asking a bunch of questions about his job.
Eventually I wrapped my head around the website, and it clicked. I liked that. Still curious, I started tinkering with Java in my free time to get my hands on some programming. At this stage I was in college, but I wasn’t studying Computer Science or anything related to programming.
Stop and enjoy the scenery
Going from absolute zero to finding your passion can be a long, tedious process. It really doesn’t have to be. Some people get burned out easier than others, so you need to find your balance, but it helps to realize that most things have many more experiences to offer than just the head-down mentality the search might require.
At this stage in my life I decided to transfer to a different college. I had been studying at a community college local to my hometown, so I felt that putting myself in an entirely new environment could supercharge my experiments.
Try new vehicles
It’s much harder to do this alone, although it is possible. For a majority of my journey I was fairly alone, but after transferring to the new college I wanted to meet more people like the Web Developer I met as a Personal Trainer.
The journey benefits from iteration. The more you expose yourself to new things the better your results will likely be, as long as there is intent behind the direction you choose to travel. It is possible to get stuck in a loop of experimenting and learning, but what I’ve found that can help is to at least spend sufficient time with everything you decide to try. Spend enough time to finish several projects or objectives from start to finish.
Getting experience with the full workflow behind any new subject is, in my opinion, the best way to test your passion for it. Unless you’re certain there’s a severe lack of interest, give it multiple beginning-to-end attempts.
Building momentum
My first semester after transferring, I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels. I knew I had an interest in programming, but I had interests in many things.
Some people will argue that being interested in many things means you’re passionate about nothing. It’s debatable, if you want to get technical, but I disagree.
I treated the transfer like a buffet: I wanted a little bit of Finance, a little bit of Math, maybe some Neuroscience to really dig deep, Astrophysics because how could you not, Computer Science to iterate on programming again, and so on.
This can become the trap. If you’re not prepared to fully test a topic or domain out, this is where you could land, spinning your wheels indefinitely.
Realizing this I decided to join a few clubs.
The journey is popular
Motivation is like currency prior to discovering your passion.
Nowadays there are thousands and thousands of communities filled with people tinkering, searching, and following their passions. You could find online forums, chat servers, website communities, and in-person groups.
I wasn’t as aware of this as I should have been, but one of the clubs I ended up joining was the ACM club (Association for Computing Machinery).
The club was filled with other students in a similar position as me — they all were interested in programming, or related disciplines, and this was a place for everyone to share the experience of learning and building together. This eventually lead me to Hackathons.
When you know, you know
Hackathons offer an experience for (often) anyone to fully test their interest in computer programming or other related disciplines. You could be an artist, designer, writer, etc. This is an opportunity to join a team to build something, allowing you to dig your teeth into the experiment.
The key is the fact that your goal is to build something. This requires you to complete something from start to finish.
If you can iterate from start to finish multiple times over, and after all of that you still want more, then you probably found a passion of yours.
When you find something you thoroughly enjoy, treat it for what it is: it’s an opportunity. Run with it, and see where it takes you. Passion can land on a spectrum. You might enjoy something a lot or just enough.
The true value is in finding a passion, and understanding that you are passionate about it.
