Wise words from Larry Smith on his own career choices #uWaterloo

What happens if you have a number of primary interests ranging from social entrepreneurship, community building and technology to politics, global governance and democracy.

According to Larry Smith, one of the best economics professors that my alma mater the University of Waterloo has to offer: just combine them all and create your own career path. Though it won’t be easy and the world will try to pigeonhole you into a box, the solution is to build an entirely new box and call it your own. It takes a lot of creativity, discipline and organization in order to pull this off, but it is possible and Larry Smith is living proof.

In the world we live in today, not only will my peers and I have a number of different jobs over the course of our lifetime, we will also be managing different careers as well with a lot of overlap in between.

On that note, I will leave you with some great quotes from Larry Smith that I found online here, some of my favourites are listed below:

• I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen; we’re finishing this course come hell or heart attack
• You’d have to be quite desperate to go to Guelph.
• I’m a legend in my own mind.
• Don’t worry. I’m going to criticize other professions too. I’m an equal-opportunity criticizer.
• Rock the boat! Don’t tweak!
• Knowing about this defines you as a part of the elite
• When you talk about me with your friends at the Bomber… [the on-campus student bar at the University of Waterloo]
• As our hero Lord Keynes would say, …
• I ask you, Gentle People, would your trusty instructor lie to you?
• I don’t need to impress you, I impress myself