The right career

Selecting the right career is probably only second in importance to selecting the right spouse. Yet, whenever I look around I find a hoard of people who have chosen the wrong career or are ambivalent towards the career they have selected. Many a times I have seen a friend of mine who was average in the career s/he was in but, one could easily make out that s/he will be outstanding in some other career. I think most of us choose our careers based on what people around us think of those careers. The parameters that affect our decision are

1. What have my friends chosen?
   
2. Do my parents approve of the career?
   
3. Do other people I know approve or appreciate this career?
   
4. Et cetera….
   

   A person who is sufficiently self confident will definitely make the choice as per his own mind but those that lack self confidence will choose the career that is most easy to justify or will rather trust the people close to them or some expert than to check out things for themselves and take an informed decision.
   

   This is one of the reasons why so many people find it difficult to cope up with studies and by the time they realize they have made a mistake, its too late for them. They will either have spent quite a long time in the career or succeeding in the career would have become a matter of life of death for whatever self confidence they have remaining in them. Both situations are undesirable.
   

   When an individual does not have confidence in his decision, he turns to the society to find an answer. So, then the decision depends upon the intellectual capacity of the society and not everyone is blessed with intellectual acquaintances. This is generally true especially with young people. Career selection should begin quite early on in one's life. Children should be exposed to a variety of careers early on, say from grade 6 or 7 onwards. Some interesting careers like event management, nature excursion specialist, HR training, etc. are not very popular in India. They have not yet got their worth from the society. Its about time the society took notice of such radical career streams, some of which don not even require conventional formal education. Also, at the end of grade 10, before selecting the stream it would help if they know the network of careers originating from the 3 basic streams. Students don't know what do people specializing in say History or Geography do? How much do they earn and what are the growth avenues in these careers? I think it is the responsibility of the parents to educate their kids.
   

   Later on, after graduating also there is a chance to switch over to a career which suits us better. At this point the selection is very crucial because it's a bargain between what we feel is right for us and what we have been doing till now. Some may end up losing both in the end. If the choice is not perfectly clear, it would make sense to take up a job somewhere for a year or two, understand what goes on in the world outside and then choose. These years should not be considered wasted as we gain valuable work experience in them. At present it is very easy to take up a job in a BPO or KPO with good remuneration, if no better option is available. Not only do we gain work experience but, we also develop our personality, our language and learn team work. For anyone with the right senses, employment is not an issue these days so we must take advantage of it.
   

   I also feel people aim low so they are worried about whether they should take up the career of their choice or not. If we choose any career and put our heart and soul into it to become one of the best in it, money follows. This fact is less known. In our surroundings we find that most rich people are engineers, businessman, MBAs, doctors, etc. So, these seem the obvious careers for success. People earning so much in other careers are less common, probably because their careers are less common. While taking decisions, if we can't see an example before us, it becomes difficult to justify the decision. If you don't know even a single history expert who earns well and enjoys his job, you'll find it difficult choose history as the major. This is exactly what is called as lack of awareness of careers.
   

   Whatever may be the case with you, it would help to select the right career and aim big in it and put your heart and soul in it - that's the only formula for success. I would like to end with a few lines said by our former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam seem quite relevant to this -
   

   Dream Big, Aim Big, Small Aim is a Crime!!!
   

Agree with me? Disagree with me? Leave a comment.....
Author: Vj

Educating the kids

Recently, I went to visit my uncle in Bangalore. While I was there my aunt was helping my niece with her home-work for the day. She is in kindergarten right now and my aunt was teaching her a few spellings. To my surprise, what she was teaching was quite different from what I had learnt. Instead of saying 'C' 'A' 'T' cat, she said 'ka' 'ae' 'ta' cat . On questioning, she laughed at how out-dated my awareness of education was and later added to my knowledge that a lot of top schools employ this method of teaching now. Gone are the days of A B C D, now is the time of Aa Bah Ka Duh. She said that using this method, children don't have to memorize spellings, most spellings will be obvious to them. Isn't it strange that most words starting from C are pronounced as if starting with K e.g. cat, call, computer, etc. So, its better to teach children to pronounce it as Ka. Isn't this brilliant!!

Later on while watching the movie Tare Zameen Par, I was amazed to see that Aamir uses the same method to teach the kid. It just shows how popular this concept is, at least among the educationists. But, when we look around, how many schools do we find employing this method? I see none save a few very good schools. In Pune, I would guess 3-4 schools may be using it but, what about the rest? In my hometown Solapur, there are 2 convent schools, both highly reputed but none of them uses this method. When I met a friend who is a teacher in one of the convent schools in Solapur, I asked her about it. From the discussion we had, I gathered that the only reason is the lack of will of the staff at the schools to put in the time and effort required to learn and implement it. The teachers of kindergarten are already under a great pressure to ensure that all the kids study well and clear the exams. 100% result seems to be the only driving force for them. Trying out this method will bring uncertainty in the results for the first 1-2 years and require laborious efforts from the teachers to teach it to children as well as create awareness among the parents.

It is a well known fact in management that the people actually implementing plans and ideas always tend to resist any kind of change in the modus operandi. But, they fail to understand that in the long terms such changes simplify things for them also. Education is a serious affair and all methods for simplifying or improving it should be implemented at the earliest. When I see the lives of today's kids I pity them because, they are so pressed for time attending schools, tuitions and watching cartoons that they have little time to play, little time to travel, little time to get a hands on exposure to the outside world. But, in this age of competition, one cannot help it.

The betterment of our future generation is the responsibility of all of us, the society, the parents, the school authorities. We should strive for innovation in education for its advancement. How soon the school authorities take note of this is a matter to be watched but, the parents of the kids should definitely voice their opinion to the schools. It may be a very small contribution to the society or the future generations but we must keep in mind:

Little drops of water;
Little grains of sand;
Make the mighty ocean;
And the pleasant Land.

Ring a bell? Agree with me? Disagree with me? Leave a comment.....

Author:Vj