[burgerbrain]

You will never find a above average programmer that isn't in some way passionate about what they do.

And really, "average" isn't really a good word to use here. People are idiots, but technically speaking your average person is of average intelligence. Those of us who consider ourselves to be in a higher tier generally consider "average" to be very sub-par.

[evilduck]

Point taken, I didn't mean to deride the average person, but my issue was with employers only wanting passionate or above average programmers. Exceptional opportunities want exceptional people. But my point was that most opportunities in our field are not exceptional and that it doesn't take much academic effort or ability to successfully meet their requirements. The student who has a firm grasp of OO concepts and can write a little SQL can handle 90% of the jobs you'll find on Dice/Monster/Craigslist/etc. Business requirements programming just isn't that academically demanding.