Qurratulain Kapasi, Clinical Psychologist and Head of CareerGuidance offers a road map to choosing a college and course that isjust right for you
Know your Interests
What are your likes? What could you spend hours on and not even mind? What do you learn easily?
Hobbies could be a good career option, but you need to be sure that you are passionate enough to convert them into a profitable career.
If the sheer volume of career options today has left you confused, consider psychometric tests and career counselling. Psychometric tests could help assess your likes, your dislikes and things that you are ambivalent about. Career counselling helps students make an informed decision after a realistic assessment of their interests, aptitude and personality.
Know your Aptitude/Ability
You may be interested in engineering, but to become a good engineer, you need to be good at Math and Physics or you may find yourself in a career where you are just mediocre when in fact you could excel at something else with half as much effort.
Know your Personality
If you’re shy and reserved, a career inmedia or marketing would be ill-fitting. So do look at what the future may demand of you before settling on a course.
Understand your Options
In addition to the eligibility criteria, which will determine whether or not you qualify for a particular course or college, you need to evaluate the future prospects of the course.
You will also need to estimate if your financial resources will cover the cost of your education or if you will need to apply for an education loan.
Perhaps most importantly, you will need to figure out if you have the patience to invest your time in challenging courses that take longer than others to complete and demand more intensive study habits.
Research
Once you know what you want to study next, start researching about colleges that offer the course that you would like to pursue.
No amount of advice can make up for good research. So read up as much as you can about the courses and careers that interest you.
Meet up with industry experts, college professors or students studying the course that you intend to take up, to understand what you are getting yourself into.
Take up short courses to gauge if this is something you would like to do as a hobby or more professionally.
Try to intern/work with people from the industry(this could be people in your existing circle of friends and family) to get a taste of what the future could hold.
Checklist
Course: Have you chosen a course you are passionate about or are you just following the herd?
Recognition: Is the college recognised by reputed educational bodies?
Placement: Does the course offer instant employability or do you have to study further?
Faculty: Do faculty members have good reputations, specialisations and adequate experience?
Fees: Can you afford the course or do you need to arrange for a student loan? Eligibility: Do you meet the criteria?
Infrastructure: Does the college cater to the course requirements?
Alumni reputation: Alumni reputation could be a good indicator of the quality of education offered.
The most important thing you need to keep in mind is that the course stays with you, not the college. So choose a course based on what you love, not because you are getting admission to the city’s top college or because your friends are getting into that college.
@AverilNunes
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