CAREER COUNCILING

In every field there is a goal framed whether long term or short term because without framing the goal or the end point of reach, a person is like a distorted boat in the sea having no target. A person cannot succeed unless he works hard for his goal. His mental, emotional and physical strength can only bloom when he will explore his potentialities and can set a right thinking and living. Those amongst us, who have framed their goals and work for it, succeed and achieve surely their targets because the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Nothing is purposeless, scope-less; impossible, meaningless, tough and futile on earth but what is required is to have a realistic attitude towards best career options. Enthusiasm, concentration, determination, dedication and relentless potential, etc. is required to move ahead without a shake on the path of success. The difference between the impossible and possible lies in the person’s attitude. The more concentratively and enthusiastically one works, the sweeter are the fruits to be reaped.

Last month, when examination for Class 4^th recruitment was sought, thousands of our qualified youth appeared in the entrance test at various centers throughout the valley. From a tenth pass up to a PhD scholar, everyone was sailing in the same boat. It really pinches an on-looker or examiner to see a tenth standard student and PhD holder being weighed in the same balance. System is not be blamed every time. We should rather blame ourselves. We have degrees but we lack the sense of ambition. We have no clear-cut target where to see ourselves. We have forgotten that during school days, our teachers made us write an essay quite often and it was ‘my aim in life’. This essay, those days, was not only to be mugged up and written in the exam as it was but it rather had a message for all of us and that was to ‘have an aim’. Getting a degree, by hook or by crook, is simply criminality. Education is education when it helps a person to find employment for oneself. If it doesn’t, then it is a sheer failure and cheating.

Our tender souls get hooked after they are tenth pass. And the only reason why didn’t they cope-up is that the courses conventional, technical or professional are thrusted upon them bereft of what their desires from three words are! We regret when our children face any untoward failure and it is basically our fault not to provide them a chance to select courses or subjects for themselves. We compel them of the streams they are despicable and disinterested about. Without caring about their hidden talents and choices we select for them the subjects we like as a result they fail to choose their dream career and cease to justify the dreams they were waiting for long to be fulfilled.

We don’t take our child’s career seriously. Why they lag behind is that we fail to depict what is coming to them. They will never stop in reaching their targets if they will be given concepts about smooth ways and the choices they are willing for, because it is choice, not chance which determines destiny. They will definitely show colors if they are provided best career options, high concepts, integrated variety of information and data about all the subjects.

 Instead of conventional courses like-Arts, Science and Commerce and professional courses like BBA, BCA, BIT, BTTM (Bachelor of Travel and Tourism Management) B.Sc in Fisheries, Nursing, Pharmacy, Dental Surgery, Nutrition and Dietetics, Physiotherapy, Fashion Designing, Law, Fine Arts, Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Microbiology and Biotechnology, Information Technology, Aeronautical, Automobile, and Civil Engineering etc. We ought to introduce the subjects like Actuarial Science, IT, Hotel Management, Advertising and Journalism, Architecture, etc. For instance- Actuarial Science is a great career option for a student after 10+2. It is rated among top five subjects in U.S.A and needs a student in any discipline with 85% marks in maths. It provides a yearly salary of Rs 10 Lakh. And in Hotel Management Annual requirement is 25,000 posts but only 4-5 thousand posts get filled as trained by the institutes of India collectively. Therefore, if a person gets trained in Hotel Management, he/she has a guaranteed job security. Similar is the case with courses like IT, Journalism and Architecture, etc.

Categorically speaking, we do justice with ourselves because we don’t know what we are and what we know. We are unaware about what to do, how to do and when it is to be done. We select subjects that have full saturation and where we feel ourselves relaxed and we eventually end up with either failure or change them after 10+2 level or graduation. Remember always that a smooth sea never produces a skillful sailor. The fields in which our students may remain meritorious are not actually the fields they are in. They don’t know anything except becoming a doctor or an engineer. Can’t they work assiduously for being a pilot, an astronaut, an air-host or hostess, journalist, architecturist, hotelier, etc? They can accrue their dreams provided they toil efficiently and consistently and work with dedication. If they will start analyzing themselves microscopically without being lethargic, they can definitely do their jobs well because Lakshya, a noted educationist has written that ‘a gardener, who knows gardenening well, is better than a scientist who doesn’t know his job properly’.

We see in our society that even Post Graduation students or even PhD scholars applying for menial jobs. Why is it so? Because we fail to understand and analyze ourselves. It is in pertinent to mention that 90% of graduates are not apt for jobs because what they know is quite different what is being demanded. Thousands of illiterate graduates every year add to the already soaring quota of unemployment in India. Our Kashmir University produces out every year more than 16000 graduates and 3000 post graduates and an equal sum comes from outside. All of these then demand Government jobs and none is ready to work in private sector. In census 2004, more than 400 MBBS Doctor’s were unemployed and the toll has now beefed up. Had they been given the concept different than the selection and had they chosen their ways according to the congeniality of Kashmir’s economic conditions then that would have been satisfactory and better. Technical, Marketing, Private Sector, etc. are some other fields than government jobs where one can boost oneself economically as well socially.

There is more beyond becoming a doctor or an engineer. For give me to say this, that there are thousands of doctors available today but not a single patient gets fully recuperated. There are equally thousands of engineers, yet, not a simple robust bridge gets constructed. What’s the fun of becoming a doctor or an engineer, if it doesn’t help our society in any manner? Raring a mindset of thrusting a burden of becoming a doctor or an engineer on our children is worse than a criminal. We must boost the moral of our children and investigate what they are good at. The movie ‘3-Idiots’ explains, this all.

 So study well and have a target set. Have a goal to chase and work for it systematically. Accumulate your energy and care it economically. Learn to compete with yourself and then with others. Be ready to face all the obstacles that come your way. Do not loose courage, be brave and dare to face all the hardships that may turn you into an inspiration for others in time to come. Learn to take rest not quit. Put in all possible efforts to achieve you goal. Remember always, life doesn’t serve us everything easily on the platter. One has to go against the flow with uttermost zeal, dedication and untiring efforts to achieve one’s goal.

(Manzoor Akash is Rafiabad-based Rising Kashmir Columnist, Freelancer and Teacher by profession. He can be mailed at: manzurakash@yahoo.co.in)