The speaker believes that economic and other pragmatic concers are what drive people's career decisions, and that very few people are free to choose their careers based on talents and interests. I tend to disagree; although practical considerations often play a significant role in occupational trends, ultimately the driving forces behind people's career decisions are individual interest and ability. At first glance the balance of empirical evidence would seem to lend considerable credence to the speaker's claim. The most popular fields of study for students today are the computer sciences-- fields characterized by a relative glut of job opportunities. Graduates with degrees in liberal arts often abandon their chosen fields because they cannot find employment, and reenter school in search of more practical careers. Even people who have already achieved success in their chosen field are ofthen forced to abandon them due to pragmatic concerns. For example, many talented and creative people from the entertainment industry find themselves looking for other, less satisfying, kinds of work when they turn 40 years of age because industry executives prefer younger artists who are tuned in to the younger demographic group the purchases entrertainment products. However, upon further reflection it becomes clear that the relationship between career-seekers and the supply of careers is an interdependent one, and therefore it is unfair to generalize about which one drives the other. Consider, for example, the two mainstream fields of computer science and law. In given the highly lucrative financial rewards. But, would our legions of talented progremmers, engineers, scientists, and technicians really pursue their careers without a genuine fascination, a passion, or at least an interest in those areas? I think not. Conversely, consider the field of law, in which it wolud appear that demand drives the job market, rather than vice versa. The number of applications to law schools soared during the civil rights movenment of the 1960s, and again in the 1980s during the run of the popular television series L.A.Law. More recently, the number of students pursuing paralegal and criminal-justice careers spiked during and immediately after the O.J.Simpson trial. Query, though, whether these aspiring lawyers and paralegals would have been sufficiently motivated had the supply of jobs and the financial rewards not already been waiting for them upon graduation. Another compelling argument against the speaker's claim has to do with the myriad of ways in which people earn their living. Admittedly, the job market is largely clustered around certain mainstream industries and types of work. Nevertheless, if one peers beyond these mainstream occupational areas it becomes evident that many, many people do honor their ture interests and talents -- in spite of where most job openings lie and regardless of their financial rewards. Creative people seem to have a knack of creating their own unique vocational niche -- whether it be in the visual or the performing arts; many animal lovers create work which allows them to express that love. Caregivers and nurturers manage to, find work teching, socializing, counseling, and healing others. And people bitten by the travel bug generallyhave little trouble finding satisfying careers in the travel industry. In sum, the speaker's threshold claim that it is strictly the pragmatic concerns of job availability and financial compensation that drive people's career decisions oversimplifies both why and how people make their choices. Besides, the speaker's final claim that people are not free to choose their work violates my intuition, In the final analysis, people are ultimately free to choose their work; it's just that they often choose to betray their true talents and interests for the sake of practical, economic considerations.