Being a student, there is very little probability that one has never gone through the state of anxiety. Majority of us are pursuing or have pursued the courses, which have not been chosen by us. The decision about our career is taken by parents, elders or if in the case of utmost independence its friends. This leads to a very common yet peculiar feeling that “it is not what I had wanted from life”.
There are many reasons for it, but most common ones are-
1. Our decisions are not actually ours:
The prime reason for this is because, mostly the careers we pursue is the career which was selected by our parents for us. Actually the most probably the career parents select for a child i.e. us are the one which they had wanted to pursue in their life but they couldn’t; may be due to the above phenomena because they also had gone through the same cycle.
The parents made us to pursue the careers, which majority of students are craving to pursue or pursuing i.e. conventional careers such as Engineering, Medical etc. These career options also have some societal prestige associated with them, which parents want to highlight to their wards.
2. Deficiencies of education system
Even many of us are not able to decide, where to go or what to do in life (in terms of career), because the thing lacking in us is exposure to different careers, because after finishing school no one is aware about options available and this is where the need of revamp of education system lies, the required exposure comes generally after 2 or 3 years of finishing school and usually that time comes when we are about to complete a particular course, & then it is too late to change career path. So for avoiding this future trauma, some steps for modifying the education system needed. For this following steps should be followed:-
The curriculum should be designed in accordance to evolve talents from students and at the same time they should be made aware of different career prospects.
It is a known fact that overnight revamp of education system is not possible but at least some subjects can be introduced in higher secondary classes, which gives a brief or elaborate introduction of different careers, its cons & pros, how to prepare themselves for them. The care should be taken that career’s introduction must include conventional, non-conventional, technical, professional courses etc. So before going to select or chose any specialization or a course one will be made aware about it and that help him/her to take sound and well informed decision.
At last, parents, teachers, elders guidance should remain up to a limit of guidance only, & final decision should be left on a student (In terms of selecting a career).
Otherwise, for students it will be like putting a pilot on pre-programmed aircraft, where even pilot doesn’t know where it is going & the only control the pilot has over it is of self destruction & this will only leads to self-blame, guilt, questions, agony for the whole life.
3. Indecisiveness or lack of clarity of goals
It is not that only parents are to be blamed for whole of the thing. Nobody can blame them as they only want fulfilment of their dreams which they have seen for their child. If they want you to be successful it is nothing wrong in it. Take a word of caution; it is quite pervasive in our society that child even himself is not able to decide, what he wants to achieve in his later life or become stuck between plethora of choices. So in this case I will say please go by your parents advice and don’t create a situation of ‘my way or highway’ and even if you want to chose your way please take advice of all the people, especially your parents and then try to convey your decisions politely and in factual way.
Hope this article will help you in some way to take a well informed decision. Best of luck to you and for your child’s future.