Pursue what you are passionate about, but be realistic about how you are going to work and handle the real issues that come with being an adult and having a family (if this is your goal).
My daughter is pursuing a degree in Art at a good university. I gave her the same talk. As she seems to have some genetic predisposition to computers and science (and math, though if you ask her she'll claim that the tests lie), she looks like she'll be mixing computer science and/or engineering into this.
My wife and I struggled to find a solution to the two body problem [1], which is part of what informed our collective decision. As much as I wanted (at the time) to be a physics prof, I saw my contemporaries struggle for years afterwards, with low pay, long hours, while having to put up with a spouse in a different city (and often a different state/coast), as their solution to this problem. That didn't appear to me to be a solution. And in the language of theoretical physics/mathematics, this problem did not appear to admit a general closed form, simple solution.
The FSU collapsing was a large part of my (really our) choice (we got married in grad school). The lack of "secure" job until early 40s (tenure track starting around 35, decision around 40-42) caused us to rethink what was important to us.
The trajectory you take is one you should undertake with eyes clearly open, aware of all the pitfalls on the path you take to the end point. And have a few concepts in mind for plans B and C in case plan A's endpoint becomes out of reach for any reason.
My daughter is pursuing a degree in Art at a good university. I gave her the same talk. As she seems to have some genetic predisposition to computers and science (and math, though if you ask her she'll claim that the tests lie), she looks like she'll be mixing computer science and/or engineering into this.
My wife and I struggled to find a solution to the two body problem [1], which is part of what informed our collective decision. As much as I wanted (at the time) to be a physics prof, I saw my contemporaries struggle for years afterwards, with low pay, long hours, while having to put up with a spouse in a different city (and often a different state/coast), as their solution to this problem. That didn't appear to me to be a solution. And in the language of theoretical physics/mathematics, this problem did not appear to admit a general closed form, simple solution.
The FSU collapsing was a large part of my (really our) choice (we got married in grad school). The lack of "secure" job until early 40s (tenure track starting around 35, decision around 40-42) caused us to rethink what was important to us.
The trajectory you take is one you should undertake with eyes clearly open, aware of all the pitfalls on the path you take to the end point. And have a few concepts in mind for plans B and C in case plan A's endpoint becomes out of reach for any reason.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-body_problem_(career)