Counseling and career choices in India

The definition of career is different in a country like India. It starts right from your school days. The choices that you make early in your career defines how easy or hard it is going to be towards the success as you grow more responsible. And the choices are not limited. How would a teenager who has just crossed 15 be able to decide what he is going to do rest of his life. In most of the cases they rise up from their childhood fantasies of becoming an astronaut or an actor. And when they are at a junction where they have to decide upon their career, they have no other choice than to look for a proper counselling. 

The first choice after secondary schooling that the child has to make is the subject that he is going to take for the higher secondary. The choices in India are normally Arts, Commerce, business, Maths, Biology etc. The counselling generally comes from the elders in the families who have been successful in their career. For those who don't have any experts within the family, the advice can come from their immediate friends and their family, or the neighbors or the seniors from the schools. I faced a very similar situation where I was the first one to show interest in engineering. Interestingly there was not even a single immediate family member who had done engineering. There were doctors and chartered accountants but no engineers. I had few people to take advice from. I relied on my friends who were also thinking about having a career in engineering. They guided me with what and why of this field which was enough for me to decide that this was what I wanted to pursue. 

Now the second dilemma that occurred was which school to join such that the time spent in school is fruitful in addition to the time that is required for self study. Again the help came from the friends who came up with the right list of schools that we should join.

The advises kept on coming throughout my career. From the engineering days to the completion of my post graduation, I am thankful to all the people who helped me progress in my career. I won't say that all the advises came through well but the way they guided is what I am thankful of. Ultimately the decisions were mine and I am more thankful to those people for helping me arrive at the right decision.

“I am blogging about my dreams and the people who helped make them true for the #AdviceThatMattered activity at BlogAdda in association with Stoodnt.”