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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is a legit feeling. So many parents think life is rosey and you should follow your passion.

In 99% of instances, following your passion will create financial stress.

Your parents did in fact not prepare you for the real world in a major city where high incomes are a necessity.

I have two middle school girls, I want them to do what they want, but I am not against telling them their path may make life harder than it needs to be.

If they want to follow their passion, I guess I'll be putting the down payment on their home[/quote]

I echo this.

Too many parents, loving and well-meaning, effectively told their kids to follow their passions and sooner or later everything will work out. Well, no, it doesn't quite work like that. Life is about choices. If your passion means being a broke editor in the AI revolution that is going to destroy the industry (and already is), is it smart to make the choice to follow your passion? Or sit back and reassess? And, really, what is passion? You love reading? Ok, you can do that outside work. But what makes life much easier is money, indisputably.

There are so many routes into adulthood. There are so many career trajectories. Most people do not end up doing what their "passion" was at age 22, if they ever had one. But smarter people figure out they can be good at something else and make more money, even if it wasn't their passion. Lots of corporate management jobs fall into this category. People managing, project management, keeping the ball rolling. OP is in her early 20s, which means she has plenty of time to get on the career track. What will help her is 1) determination, 2) grit, 3) drive, and 4) learning (quickly) from mistakes and moving forward.

OP, if you're good at writing and managing a writing project, I'd suggest looking at proposal management. You'd have to start out as an lowly specialist but it's a career trajectory, especially in the DC area with all the fed contracting, that has a lot of room to grow in. It's not BIGLAW but after five or so years as a specialist, an  experienced proposal manager can absolutely command 125k+ salary, and directors of proposal management approaches 200k or more with bonuses. You could even look at tech firms, they have proposal teams and can make pretty good salaries, especially if you join young and develop a niche area managing tech proposals (if you're really good at it, it can be big money with RSUs). And it's a good gateway job to other project management or group management roles in corporate America, if you hustle and network.

I would not go down the MFA route. That is a guaranteed money loser. [/quote]

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