Early this morning a friend’s wife called up. She has never called up ever, but as of now, she has taken the trouble of calling my mother, taking my number and calling me up on it. Half way down the conversation she cut it off, then did not bother to call back.
A colleagues wife, who has neither the time or civility to connect visits to consult my husband. she wanted career guidance advice from my husband who is a professor in Management!
Yet another friend gets her son to talk to my husband. I give it to her, she had her son talk and made him ask what ever questions he wanted. It was different that the boy got tongue tied and eventually she landed up voicing her concerns.
In the first instant the kid wants to do “something different” since my daughter did something different, the mother wanted to know the road map.
In the second the boy has done his rounds of engineering entrance and out of the blue started toying with another option.
In the third child wants to do BBA but the mom would like him to opt for engineering because it is safe.
In the all the cases I found it very interesting that it was the mother who was taking charge, the father did not seem to be part of the conversation. None of the parents bothered to ask the kids what subject interested them.
Both my daughters opted for off beat courses, and they were very definite what they wanted to do. My younger daughter was very fascinated by forensics so she opted for a BSc. in forensics. The major driving force towards a career is the ease to go abroad.
I know of a boy who topped engineering entrance exams, and came 3rd in the medicine, his choice was neither. Left to himself he would choose a BSc. in physics, but his parents pushed him into medicine, the boy does academically well. The truth is he is not a clinician.
Usually the parents or kids approach me once they perceive that there is an non-alignment. If the parent brings the child it is because of poor performance. If the child comes on his or her own it is with sense of very low self worth or total confusion.
The truth here is the child knows best and not parents. Once the child chooses a subject of his or her choice, half the battle is won. next step would be to look at the passion and lifestyle anticipation of the child. These work as the marker for the right career choice.
For example…The girl who wanted to do something different…I would ask her what is the subject that interests you? Lets say she says Botany then we look at career options in botany. Contrary to our perceptions, all the subjects have gone interdisciplinary and opening are varied.
Natural interest in a subject, combined with passion navigated towards the true north, sets the child to achieve. Growth happens, and when growth happens there is innovation or creativity involved.
Think of it this way if the child chooses his or her passion he or she stays focused. Being focused increases skill and effeciency, increased skill in effeciency. This opens earning avenues.
BTW we do have a proper method for the child to identify his or her true north and identify the igniting passion. This is different from the aptitude test which will tell you the talent and aptitude the person has for a profession, it might not match the persons ambition.
In a nutshell basic questions to ask
- what subject interests me the most. List at least 4 starting from the one that excites you most to one that excites you least.
- what are the career opportunities in my chosen, now you need to list for each of the four.
- what is the kind of lifestyle I am looking at 10yrs down the line.
- now prioritize the list so that you can the right one. This exercise often reveals interesting things. Like a child who thought he didn’t like studying engineering actually discovered that when he put things in a perspective engineering it was.
- Now look at the college, finance options.
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