Just take life sciences as a more realistic example.

About a decade ago, all the brightest students had only 1 thing in mind - to study life sciences and work in the billion dollar industry headed by Philip Yeo and funded by the government.

Now, just look at the empty buildings around one-north, the tiny budget allocated to A*star, Philip Yeo's new career, and the thundering silence on the great life sciences experiment in Singapore.

I think there are still one or two very PASSIONATE life sciences scientists here. Once in a while they'll announce some "breakthroughs" in the papers, but most of the passionate life science graduates are working in totally unrelated fields or peddling medical stuff to neighbourhood GPs and at best restructured hospitals, while their business graduate counterparts enjoy the good life making good money working in banking and finance.

You wanna be passionate, you better be passionate in the right field!