Follow your heart in choosing a course

After Class 12, students are normally at crossroads when it comes to choosing the next course, as one is often unsure of which career to pursue. The general advice is that one should ascertain one’s strengths and weaknesses before arriving at any conclusion.

Students who are good in Biology and have an inclination to serve society may opt for Medical Sciences, those strong in Mathematics with a good logical thinking and reasoning ability may opt for courses in Applied Sciences. Students who are good in imagination and drawing can opt for courses like Architecture, Interior Design and Fashion Designing. Courses like Agriculture Science, Horticulture and Home Science require special interest. Apart from these courses there are several other professional courses like Law, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy etc., that one may consider.

Every course has a good scope provided you enjoy studying it and perform well. Hence, choose your profession by passion, aptitude and interest, not by convention.

Most of the times, students choose a particular course or college influenced by friends or parents’ advice irrespective of one’s own interest. Don’t get influenced by your friend or neighbour, analyse your skills and interests and then take a decision. Comparing yourself with others may lead to undermining or overestimating one’s learning ability. Students having relatively closer ranks may have different learning interests and comparing yourself with others is not advisable. Therefore, choose courses or programmes that match your suitability and learning ability.

College vs course

Every candidate should research thoroughly and prepare a list of courses or colleges he or she wishes to apply. One can take the help of parents in this regard.

Consider two ways of entry to address this problem. The first is the college-based option and the second is the course-based option.

In the college-based option entry, list out the names of colleges in the preferential order you wish to opt and select the courses in that particular college. Here students must ascertain the credential of college or institute before they opt for it.

Ensure that the college or university you are opting is accredited by NAAC/NBA. Such institutions can be preferred first and the rest next.

In the second method of course-based option entry, list out the courses you wish to opt irrespective of college in the preferential order and enter the options.

Seats are allotted through a computer based non-interactive method. It searches the options entered in the preferential order and allocates seats as per the seat matrix.

Therefore, exercise your options very carefully and do it yourself, don’t ask somebody else to do it on your behalf.

Also, talk to the students of the course or institute and the alumni to understand the class and college dynamics.

Once a seat is allotted to you, obtain admission in the desired course and college. Subsequent to this, what matters is how you perform in the chosen course. Normally, the success rate in academics is measured by the percentage of marks you score in university exams or the placement package you get.

But, the ideal way to measure your success rate is to assess the amount of knowledge and skills you have gained, human values and ethics you acquired, how well equipped you are to address societal problems and environmental concerns.

(The author is principal of an engineering college)