Selection of A Career

Life is full of opportunities if you keep your heart and mind open and listen to your dreams. Yes, dreams are important, because you need passion to succeed in any field. Passion, dedication and focused hard work will certainly lead you to success.

Gone are the days when students and parents spent days and nights aiming for just two fields (considered respectable) – medical and engineering. The race for high marks required to get into these fields led to inferiority complex and depression in the average students. We forget one important fact of life, that not every high scorer is successful in life. In order to succeed in life, practical intelligence is much more important than high scores on paper based on bookish knowledge. Today there are more than 3000 career options available, to choose from, each equally respectable in society. If a child is interested in science, becoming a medical doctor is not the only option. There are many options in medical and science research, capable of satiating a person’s love for science. Dreams and personal likings should guide ones career choice rather than societal pressure.

Know the strengths and weaknesses-

When the child is in school, by the time he/she reaches class 3, we know which are his /her strong subjects and which ones he/she picks up slowly. Some children are good at mathematics and some are good in languages. Some show interest in literary activities and show in sports activities. This assessment provides the basic hint towards the type of career the child will or should opt for in future. Encourage and inspire the child in the subject of his liking, by introducing him to various subject related activities.

Nurture hobbies-

Almost any hobby can be turned into a career today. Painting, gardening, music, photography, traveling, writing, theatre, cooking, the list is endless. Let the child pursue her hobbies with equal sincerity as she pursues her academics. Not many years back, hobbies were considered secondary to academics and limited just to the summer vacations. It is not so today. Now, extra curricular activities (with many options) are part of regular school curriculum, so that children give equal importance to regular academic subjects as well as activities like music, sculpture, sports etc. This way the children grow up learning and respecting all possible vocations. So often people are dissatisfied with the job they are doing. The pay may be good, but the job does not provide mental satisfaction. This hampers growth. Hobbies are something which you love doing and so a career related to the hobby will obviously be more satisfying. And when you get to do something you like, you put in more efforts. Hard work and satisfaction go hand in hand.

Pursue dreams-

Daydreaming is not always a joke. Dreams should inspire and guide. If you have a dream or an aspiration, focus all your efforts on that. Make every honest effort to achieve that dream. Passion for something pushes one to scale any height. If for example a teenager is average in mathematics, but has a dream of becoming an automobile engineer. This dream itself will inspire the boy to work harder in his weak subject and attain his goal of becoming an automobile engineer.

Family background-

The environment in which a child grows up has a great role to play in the career choice of youngsters. It is therefore common for doctor’s son to go into medicine, a businessman’s son to start or carry on a family business and a musician’s son to pursue music professionally. Family members are the first role models for children. Secondly, being brought up in a particular environment, it becomes easier for the youngster to seek guidance and follow the family profession.

Practical assessment of future-

Some fields, like fine art, require lots of patience. With regard to income, some careers are uncertain and may involve long struggle before settling down comfortably. Starting a business requires some basic initial investment, which you may not have. Such practical limitations have to be weighed before opting for a particular career path. Consider things like your family’s financial capabilities, your minimum earning requirements to support the family, determination to pursue a particular path etc. Lots of people pursue a regular job to finance and finally switch over to a profession of their liking. Fashion designers and doctors work as interns or under someone well established in the field, till they are confidant enough to start their own label or clinic.

Career counselling -

Not everyone is able to clearly define one’s choices/likings. Also, too many options too lead to confusion. In such case it helps to consult a good career counselor who is trained in human psychology and able to rightly asses the strengths of the chills and thereby guide accordingly. Almost every schools have career counselors.

Parent’s role-

Parent’s should always look out for the talents of the child and encourage them. Because children are raw, parents should expose them to as many possible professions and professionals as possible. While doing this observe the interest of the child and help her learn more about things in which she shows interest. Never enforce your personal wishes on the child. The child may opt for a career of your choice out of love and respect, but as time passes he may feel dissatisfied with life, craving to do something he wished for himself as a child. Parent’s role is to encourage and guide the child to work hard in whatever field they choose, and at same time explain the possible limitations of the opted field. In order to guide judiciously parents should themselves try to acquire knowledge of what’s going on the world. Parents should keep themselves updated through the internet and the print media, about the various career options available and the pros and cons of those careers