As she began researching calling’s role in the lives of young musicians, Shasa realized that studying the career progression of these individuals over time was essential to answer her questions. Looking cross-sectionally at either music students or musicians already in the early stages of their professional careers, which would have been a more typical approach, would not address her core interests in understanding how people selected into this profession in the first place and who subsequently “made it.” Therefore, in 2001, at the end of her first year of graduate school, she launched a large-scale longitudinal survey study of several hundred accomplished adolescent musicians. This study involved collecting data from this same cohort of people repeatedly over time to track the role of callings in their careers and lives.