After passing their tenth and twelfth standard examinations students are always confused about which stream should they join? Today, there are various courses available for students. They have to make a choice between Science, Commerce and Arts. Students mostly select a stream which is chosen by their friends. Many of them blindly emulate them without knowing about which career is better for them. Sometimes a student chooses Science and later on, he fares badly in the subject as he is weak in Science and Mathematics. He may also fail in examinations. After losing one year, he might rethink his decision and opt for Commerce or Arts stream. He then has to start afresh and learn about the basics of these subjects. Many times, students take a certain decision due to peer pressure which then backfires. Often parents impose pressure on students to choose a particular stream.
A student might be good at photography but his parents want him to join the engineering field. He joins engineering but later on, loses his interest and eventually quits it. Thus, parents should not impose pressure on their children and let them choose their own career as per their interest. They should not compare their children with others. Often parents have a tendency to give weightage to marks and percentage scored by their children. Sometimes children fare badly in academics and excel in sports. Such children can even take up sports as a career provided they receive good support from their parents. Students should realise that marks are not important in life but learning and skill development is more vital for progress. Most of the education system is theory-oriented giving students less exposure to the real world. Thus, when they finish their education to face the real world they are facing too many challenges as they lack practical knowledge.
Therefore, it is necessary that students should undergo counselling before choosing a career. They can appear for an aptitude test to assess their competency which will enable them to arrive at a right decision. Through this test, a student will be aware of his strengths and weakness. Some of them might be good at mathematics and join engineering stream. Those who are good at English can join Arts, journalism or MA. Those who are good at number crunching can join commerce and do B.Com or join CA course later on.
Often parents put pressure on their children to opt for Engineering or Medicine even though they might not be interested in pursuing it. Some students are weak in Mathematics hence, they can’t perform better in it. Students join these courses due to parental pressure and later fare badly in the examination. They also lose their academic year and later on, they are forced to change their career path. Thus, due to these decision students time and parents hard-earned money is wasted. Before joining a job or choosing a profession students can do an internship in order to ascertain whether they really like what they are doing. If they are not interested then they can switch to an alternate career which suits them. Finally, parents should allow children to choose a career of their choice.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
