Sitting in an airport diner, my blockmate and I talk about our hopes and dreams. Over Caesar salads and Diet Cokes, we ask each other the question: “What did you want to be when you grew up?” We laughed about the silly answers we’d once thought we could be, like movie stars and astronauts.
As we compared and contrasted the ways in which we could imagine our dreams realistically coming true, we came to a conclusion. We decided that it is still possible for us to pursue our biggest and brightest career ambitions later on in life, perhaps after a decade or two of hard, less interesting work. We reveled in the idea of pursuing a second-act career.
The idea of the proverbial “dream job” has always existed—but is it a myth? Typically, we refer to dreams as the literal images that conjure in our heads as we fall asleep. Other times, we use the word to represent future goals and ambitions, ideals that we aspire to. A dream job is the ideal career that we envision for our future selves. It’s a career that we imagine will bring us all the good stuff: money, recognition, power, and fulfillment. What we don’t do, though, is dream about reality and our day-to-day—the struggles and stress of sacrifice and hard work. But that’s what makes the dreams dreams: they’re a way to escape reality.
As it stands, this idea of the “dream job” so often leads to disappointment. From the time we’re little, the question asked of us is what we will be when we grow up, not who we will be.
For the better part of the first twelve years of my life, I believed I was going to be the next great American fashion mogul. My label, as I planned, was to be called Rania Noor. Somewhere not long after summers of sewing camps, weekends watching Project Runway, mornings spent sketching at the kitchen table, afternoon trips to Joann Fabrics, and evenings spent pinning fabric and picking threads out of the creases of my bedroom floor, I lost this dream.
My next dream job was to be an Editor-in-Chief, somewhere in a high-up, glassy Manhattan skyscraper. After that, it was to be RBG, or maybe a civil rights lawyer. But after countless iterations of imagining what I could and would be one day, and then giving up on it, I grew a harsh, crushing sense of reality—that I in fact could probably not do anything I wanted right after college.
Early in our adolescence, we’re encouraged to set our sights on stable careers with powerful titles, big salaries, and respect from peers. Careers where we work hard for promotions, focused on moving up the career ladder. But with this narrow vision, we’re left, more often than not, unfulfilled, uninspired, and trapped.
In a sometimes suffocating environment like Harvard, we are constantly forced to question whether our true academic and intellectual passions can secure us a steady job or a spot in a graduate school after our four years. According to The Harvard Crimson, concentrations such as Economics, Computer Science, and Government that are more immediately applicable to occupations, and thus more immediately financially rewarding, continue to lead in popularity. It’s possible that our generation truly loves economic theory, but it’s also possible that we just have increasing anxiety about our job prospects.
There’s also a growing contemporary pressure in the job market that every job we pursue should be our “dream job,” not only providing us a living, but also stimulation, emotional fulfillment, and a sense of purpose. This image of every career being a complete source of passion is endearing, but in some ways unrealistic.
I’m a proponent of the growing realization that we don’t necessarily have to follow a traditional path to fulfill our ambitions—or give up on pursuing our ideal jobs just because it seems the moment has passed. I’m in favor of taking a few diversions on your journey towards your dream job.
A 2011 study from Civic Ventures found that of the 9 million boomers who went on to have second-act careers, a majority had been thinking about it since before age 50. I understand a second-act career to be what a person pursues after transitioning away from a previous career. It’s often a major career change that can pave the way for more meaning and excitement in life with so many advantages. However, to seriously consider a second-act career, we need to be in responsible financial positions and be comfortable in our emotional support systems— privileges that aren’t the easiest to retain. Money matters, especially when considering changing careers later in life.
There’s a privilege to all of this. At Harvard, I still at times feel the illusion that the whole world is at my fingertips. I know that with hard work and dedication, Harvard can provide me the opportunity to succeed financially and intellectually in the future. I feel so lucky to have this pseudo-safety net, because my dreams still feel within reach, no matter how long it may take me to reach them.
Generally, though, we need to work at changing the narrative that there’s an age barrier when it comes to pursuing our dreams. Dream jobs don’t have an expiration date. In fact, the lessons we will learn throughout our lives will equip us for what’s to come. Whether we will or won’t have experience in our dream job, the knowledge and experience that we will have is valuable and not stifling. It’s never too late to start learning a new skill.
I love dreams, and I will never stop dreaming. We just need to allow ourselves the capacity to linger and take time to decide what we actually want and what we need to do to get there. Just take the first step, then the second. Personal fulfillment doesn’t retire when we do.
Believe in the conviction that following your dreams will always be worth the jump. Our dreams are waiting for us whenever we’re ready to reach out and grab them. So give yourself the permission to keep dreaming. Don’t rob yourself of a future that you still have the ability to be the architect of. Rania Jones ’27 (rjones@college.harvard.edu) will one day write a book.