Here is a look at six members of the “slash generation.”Growing up in New Orleans, Thomas Oden, a forensic psychiatrist, surrounded himself with music and played the saxophone in his high school jazz band. He stopped when he went to Morehouse College. “I felt I had to make the choice to be all about academic work,” he said. “I really kind of missed it, and I didn’t know at the time that I was giving up an outlet, a release from things.” Later, at medical school parties in Boston, Dr. Oden found himself fascinated by the D.J.s. “Seeing that mental energy that had to take place to make people in a party have a good time, that really kind of impressed me,” he said. He began spinning music for his friends’ get-togethers and posting mixes online. When he moved back to New Orleans for his residency, his reputation preceded him, and offers for paid gigs began coming in.“At that point, from all the medical training, you learn how to be empathetic to people’s concerns,” said Dr. Oden, who goes by the stage name D J Diagnosis.

“They don’t know their diagnosis, they need reassurance, they’re scared. I realized I could use that skill set in a completely different way, for people who just want to have a good time. I was able to feel the other spectrum.”Occasionally, worlds collide: Someone at the hospital will recognize Dr. Oden, 32, from his night gig and call him out. “That can be kind of embarrassing because I try to separate the two,” he said. “People assume I’m some kind of social butterfly.” For Margaret Choo, the mash-up started at Vanderbilt, where she majored in neuroscience, minored in art history and worked at an art museum. After moving to New York to work as a researcher for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she learned about Live in the Grey, an organization that promotes an Oprah-esque “live your best life” way of looking at work by sharing stories of people who blend what they like to do with what makes money.“It addresses a lot of the multifaceted lives that millennials tend to lead,” Ms. Choo said.

“There’s so much to get inspired by, there’s so much to take on.”Ms. Choo, 27, had been a baker since childhood, and her friends pushed her to offer her services for events. She now rents space in a commercial kitchen in Midtown Manhattan, where she makes custom confections for clients like Kiehl’s. Her museum colleagues benefit, too.“They’re aware and supportive of it,” Ms. Choo said, “especially if it means they can try some of the products.” “My LinkedIn page looks crazy,” said Lenny Platt, 30, an administrative legal assistant at ESPN’s New York office who is also an actor in the Shonda Rhimes drama “How to Get Away With Murder” and the executive producer of BBQ Films, a collective that puts together elaborate events based on cult movies. Mr. Platt, who has a law degree, has negotiated absences from his legal work to go on auditions and take on roles that require him to be on set during normal working hours. His work with BBQ Films runs into his nights and weekends: He helped organize and starred in a recent tribute to “Weekend at Bernie’s,” playing Bernie’s similarly crooked son, a character dreamed up by the team at BBQ Films.“

I’m lucky I’m still on this high and I haven’t burned out yet,” Mr. Platt said. “Check back with me in a few years.”Operations Vice President/Production Agency Co-FounderAmy Lipkin is the vice president for retail operations at the John Derian Company, the home goods purveyor. jiro dreams of sushi dvd australiaBut shortly after she became a founder of a digital video production agency, North Sea Air, she asked her boss if she could scale back her time.Ms. Lipkin, 35, spends two days a week at the Midtown offices of North Sea Air, where she and her business partner, Graeme Maclean, produce promotional videos for clients like Mercedes-Benz and the Glenlivet. jiro dreams of sushi region 4“The only way that I’m able to achieve this balance financially is to never have a weekend,” she said.suzi sushi online game

As an avid writer and reader who majored in English literature at Boston University, she was drawn to narrative. Three years ago, Mr. Maclean, who at the time was also working for Mr. Derian, asked Ms. Lipkin to help him produce a film about the lamp maker Robert Ogden.“I felt like I was putting air in a tire that had gone flat, and I didn’t even know that it had gone flat,” Ms. Lipkin said.jiro dreams of sushi production companyAs a life coach/writer/singer, Sally A. Mercedes champions “full authentic expression in all areas of your life.” Her Instagram account is rife with motivational hashtags and images, like a watercolor blotch with cutout magazine words that asks, “Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?”Ms. Mercedes, 30, got the hint two years ago, while working at Latina magazine. “I kind of got lost for a while, like, ‘I need to get a better job, I need to get higher pay,’ ” she said. “

I got very caught up in the external hustle of New York life.” She also felt guilty “because there was nothing wrong. I had a good job, I had a good apartment, I had a roommate. Why was I unhappy?” To slay her ennui, Ms. Mercedes decided to fulfill a long-held dream of living in Paris. She booked a plane, quit her job and completed an online program that laid the groundwork for her life-coaching service, Unmuted Expression, which she runs from wherever she happens to be in the world (she moves between New York and Paris, among other cities). This year, she raised money via the crowdfunding platform Go Fund Me for her first vocal performance. It happened in New York in August; a YouTube video shows a barefoot Ms. Mercedes belting out an Alanis Morissette medley along with a band.Ms. Mercedes said her “creativity coach” inspired her to do the show.“She’s also a dancer, and she’s putting together a one-woman show,” she said. “She’s one of those women where it’s like, ‘Oh, if she can do all of these things and be reasonably successful, then I can do all of these things, too.’