When you envision an economics class,
what do you think of?
Dry facts?
Complicated formulas?
A stuffy professor
droning in an monotone voice?
Not in Larry Smith’s economics class
at the University of Waterloo.
(at least not when I was taking his classes)
There was never an empty seat
and the students taking the class
knew to show up early
because students not taking the class
would drop in and listen.
These students were in unrelated fields,
the liberal arts,
computer studies, geology.
They came to listen
because Larry Smith has a passion for economics.
He makes the subject matter interesting.
But passion is different from interest.
As he explains
“Passion is your greatest love,
passion is the thing
that will help you create
the highest expression of your talent.
Passion, interest,
it’s not the same thing…
What you want is passion…
You need 20 interests and
then one of them might grab you, and
one of them might engage you
more than anything else.
And then you will have found
your greatest love
in comparison to all of the other things
that interest you, and
that’s what passion is.”
Find your passion.
Live your passion.