Passion

Passion definitely has to be the driving factor that leads anyone to choose a career. If it is not, it's just a job, not a career. Passion means to ignite a fire that will give you energy to share your passion and turn it into something. For some of us, that means we have been given the opportunity to teach our passion. I once had a theatre teacher in high school who not only taught theatre, she WAS it. There was a certain magical-ness about her, like anything was possible. Because truly she did make everything possible! She was able to get her students to forget who we were, to become a different person, to "step into character" and make decisions that the character you were portraying would make. We rarely felt embarassed or hesitant because the key thing was that we wanted to enter her world of magic. I experienced this same level of passion another time through my senior year Astronomy teacher. He literally would jump around the room to explain different concepts and ideas because he was so excited. As you can guess, this made us want to be as excited as him. I have been fortunate to have teachers who are generally enthusiastic about what they teach. There have been instances where I've had teachers that haven't been very exciting, let alone passionate about a subject. The important thing that makes a difference though is how you as the student can still be passionate enough about learning to get what you need out of the class, even if the teacher didn't impact you hugely. It's up to you to seek your own passions with the tools you have.