Leave the money and run

A trendy topic in digital media and advertising today is return on investment, or ROI. Given the volume and complexity of data that is available on the web, advertisers want to understand how their buys perform and what kind of benefit they are deriving from them. Whereas in the past, the lion's share of research used to go into understanding the initial investment, there is now a strong focus on the returns that can be produced.

A similar thing can be said for many twenty-somethings' approach to their careers today. If you're going to invest $200,000 dollars for a college education, shouldn't you pick a first job and career that can produce a commensurate return? Or, at the very least, shouldn't you chase an initial high-salaried position so that you can build up your savings before pursuing your passions?

From one perspective, there is little to fault with this approach. The reality is that most first-, second-, and third-year jobs will share many of the same disadvantages of undergraduate-level positions: low visibility, subjectivity to a manager's whims, and lots of "bitch work." If you're going to have to deal with those obstacles in most early-career corporate, government, and non-profit roles, why not get paid lots of money to do it? Dealing with bureaucracy is a little easier when you can drop $500 on a fancy dinner or bar tab later that night.

Nevertheless, there are some who choose to break the mold and travel the less-trodden paths, pursuing careers with high short-term risks or lower long-term salary potential (and often both).

It seems that an increasing number of people have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, although a large proportion of those people choose to pursue entrepreneurial roles at larger, more established firms rather than diving into a true startup. Similarly, while many people state they want to "help the world," most resort to donations and weekend charitable work rather than taking a position with an impact-generating non-profit organization.

What seems to be lost in all the hype around career ROI is that in general - and, of course, there are exceptions - it is never easier to be poor than when you are just out of college. You probably don't have a spouse or family to support; the interest on your student debt has just started to accumulate; you haven't yet developed expensive habits like eating caviar or jetting off to Rome for the weekend. (Again, there are exceptions to this, and having gone to a good college, you probably knew some of them.) If you're going to risk it all, why not risk it when you have the least to lose?

With a good degree, you're likely to bounce back from most failures, and there's always graduate school to bail you out and to raise your earning potential. And, more importantly, by pursuing your passions early on, you can start to better understand your calling in life as well as develop the experience you need to obtain more senior, meaningful roles in your late 20s instead of in your 30s and 40s.

Not everyone is cut out for the less glamorous world of startups, NGOs, and non-profits. But for those who are, an early gamble can have considerable payoffs.

Inspiration for this post came from Ravi Mishra, founder and CEO of Athleague, and Katie Kaplun, Associate for Insights at Teach for America, both based in Boston, Mass.