>Are you also disillusioned with professional sports, music, acting, and art?

Not the person you were asking, but I think we need to double down on disillusionment in these. I've spoken to too many kids who dreamed of careers in this well into high school, often at cost to other academic paths, when their performance already clearly showed they weren't going this route. Sadly, it is hard to be strong about correcting kids because it is seen as not believing in them and not encouraging them.

As disillusioned as one might be up academia, the path one is on to get there tends to better align with setting students up for a successful career outside of it compared to the ones you listed.

The Teacher's Argument, Fame, 1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OVfOJ4Oi0c

Some kids who try to compete in a winner-take-most market, whether that's being a famous artist, performer, or academic, will succeed; most won't. No one who doesn't try will succeed. Someone is going to succeed. (Who wrote The Teacher's Argument? People who by definition made a famous musical, that's who.)