>”Overall I’m leaning towards the view that “don’t follow your passion” and “do high-leverage intellectual work” are good pieces of advice in isolation which work badly in combination: I suspect that passion about a field is a very important component of doing world-class research in it.”
This fits my personal experience doing an economics PhD extremely well. I never had a true passion for economics; I thought I might be a good fit for being an academic researcher because “I find lots of things interesting”, “I did well in classes”, and “I’m truly passionate about improving other people’s lives.” In retrospect, I didn’t have nearly enough passion for economics itself, and that lowered the quality of my work. Doing good empirical research requires a lot: Patience; creativity; accepting your colleagues’ indifference, since no one needs your work; pestering people for data access; trying things that are not likely to work; reading a lot in the hope that inspiration will strike; and spending a lot of your spare time thinking about work.
This is all psychologically difficult if you don’t have a deep passion for the subject matter. (Or, like some successful researchers, passion for prestigious appointments and publications.) One of my college professors “joked” that his department didn’t like hiring people with hobbies. When asked what he did for fun, an MIT physics professor said he said he thinks about physics that won’t publish well. An economics professor advised first-year grad students to think about economics everywhere and most of the time in order to come up with ideas for projects. Some empirical economists read bone-dry trade publications hoping to find a new data source or policy change to study.
All of this should have warned me that without an exceptionally deep passion for any particular field, I was not cut out to be a great researcher. When you’re unhappy, It’s hard to be creative, and without a manager or real deadlines, it’s hard to put in long hours or push yourself to do boring work. I may have been able to sustain a career as a mediocre researcher, but I don’t think my work would have been likely to be impactful.
>”Overall I’m leaning towards the view that “don’t follow your passion” and “do high-leverage intellectual work” are good pieces of advice in isolation which work badly in combination: I suspect that passion about a field is a very important component of doing world-class research in it.”
This fits my personal experience doing an economics PhD extremely well. I never had a true passion for economics; I thought I might be a good fit for being an academic researcher because “I find lots of things interesting”, “I did well in classes”, and “I’m truly passionate about improving other people’s lives.” In retrospect, I didn’t have nearly enough passion for economics itself, and that lowered the quality of my work. Doing good empirical research requires a lot: Patience; creativity; accepting your colleagues’ indifference, since no one needs your work; pestering people for data access; trying things that are not likely to work; reading a lot in the hope that inspiration will strike; and spending a lot of your spare time thinking about work.
This is all psychologically difficult if you don’t have a deep passion for the subject matter. (Or, like some successful researchers, passion for prestigious appointments and publications.) One of my college professors “joked” that his department didn’t like hiring people with hobbies. When asked what he did for fun, an MIT physics professor said he said he thinks about physics that won’t publish well. An economics professor advised first-year grad students to think about economics everywhere and most of the time in order to come up with ideas for projects. Some empirical economists read bone-dry trade publications hoping to find a new data source or policy change to study.
All of this should have warned me that without an exceptionally deep passion for any particular field, I was not cut out to be a great researcher. When you’re unhappy, It’s hard to be creative, and without a manager or real deadlines, it’s hard to put in long hours or push yourself to do boring work. I may have been able to sustain a career as a mediocre researcher, but I don’t think my work would have been likely to be impactful.