Choose Your Career

Many of us, do not choose our career... What we do in our job or profession, in our ‘work life’ is by chance. Though this is changing gradually, this is the case with the majority of the people & not all. The root cause of this problem lies with the society, the culture & our educational system.

In the 60s ~ 70s, everyone wanted to have a job with the Government or Govt owned companies (ISRO, Telecom etc) or Govt educational institutions or Nationalised banks. Job security & pension was the attraction.

In the 80’s, engineers or doctors were the most wanted professions (sometimes I even felt that these were the only two professions in the world!). And one had to choose between the two! Since there were limited colleges, there was a mad rush to get an admission & those who could not make it were looked down upon. Remember the ‘Brilliant & Agarwal Tutorials’ & ‘Entrance Coaching & Exams’! Even parents, of these students, who made it to these professional colleges had a sense of accomplishment. There was fierce competition between the parents of different students. They (parents), in fact, were tense & more stressed than the students.

Then came the great IT wave & also the MBA ...

No matter whether one has a flair for a particular domain or not –

One opts for Computer Science in Engineering since IT is the ‘hot’ career.

One becomes a carpenter since his grandfathers were carpenters.

One decides to do a CA or an MBA since it has lot of ‘scope’ in Finance & Investment banking or Marketing or Retailing.

One decides to do bachelors in literature or history, since financially one cannot afford what he really wants to do.

One is running the family business, since you are the only one to take it forward & hence is forced to do it.

And sometimes we succeed & at times not...

When we choose our field of study & then our career, we never think whether we have an aptitude or passion for that field. We choose it merely because it is the ‘hot’ career & it has lot of ‘scope’. Hoping & dreaming that it will land us in a fancy job in a great company with a good remuneration.