Thursday, July 24, 2014

Factors that Influences your Career Choice: 7 P’s of Career Selection

Career selection is an important stage in a student’s life. It influences a number of decisions that he/she takes based on their career choices. Choice of a subject, a university, an institution, a company, a job profile depends on the career one chooses to pursue.

Nowadays it is quite certain to find students confused or unaware of their career path, even after having completed their graduation. They seem unsure of the degrees they hold as it doesn’t given them a clear vision of what they want to do.

Career Planning is no more a one time occurrence which would end with the decision of the right university or college. It extends till we get the right job and get a satisfying work profile.
After completion of schooling, one tends to select a stream based on their previous best performance. If a student scores 90 percentile in Science he/she wants to become an engineer/ doctor and likewise they go for commerce and every other subject. In more than 90% of the cases, it turns out to be haste or a wrong decision. The basis on which we evaluate our career choice remains unjustified.

Students who face exam anxiety and fail to perform up to their standard in the classroom tests are left out in the race. They are treated as a non-performer or a below average student. Similarly there are few who manage to excel just by rote learning. Some depend on their families to take the right call; well, some choose to follow the crowd. There is no clarity of one’s self interest. This is the first wrong step that can lead them to a wrong path.

A wrong career choice can also increase the investment cost of a student in his/her education. Every time when a student’s career vision oscillates it calls for unnecessary expenditure. Most of the students invest huge amount of money as well as time in getting clarity over their career choice. They keep changing their subjects, even after having done majors in a particular subject they end up choosing a totally different profession.

What is most important is to have a good and clear career choice at an early stage so that it allows one to excel and achieve better in the chosen profession.

Brig. S. N. Setia, the Director of the ICT who has been associated with the Manav Rachna International University (MRIU) for long , has carved out 7 most common factors that influence the career choice of a student, which often swerves them from making the correct choice.

Parents’ Desire/Parental Pressure: Choosing a career just to live up to the parents expectation is the most common decision taking by students at an early stage, which they tend to regret later. Most of the students from business families are by default expected to choose commerce and hence B.Com or BBA as their suited career course. Some who resist submit to the parental pressure leading to an unsuccessful career graph. Such influences under the garb of adhering to their guardians wish are considered unfruitful for the students in long run.

Peer Persuasion: This is the easiest way of getting away from taking self decision. Most of the students want to follow the crowd to get to their destination. ‘Follow your friends’ is the most trending exercise visible during the selection of a university/college. Majority choice is considered the best choice. This mindset has increased the count in the mediocre group where students fail to succeed in their career and just keep on it with an average performance.

Past Performance: This is in fact the most unjustified and distorted basis of analyzing one’s performance and interest area. In India, we are not only churned in an old education system of rote learning but we believe in the numbers to prove our caliber. This practice of determining one’s interest field based on one time exam performance has often led to a wrong career decision.

Potential: Potential of a student can be legitimate criterion for choosing a career. Very few are able to identify their potential and choose their subject of knowledge based on it. A career selected on the basis of one’s potential has greater prospect of assuring success.

Placements: We wish to choose a profession that can provide for our bread and butter. 
Placement opportunities in a particular university are thus considered most important factor for the students when they harp about their career choice. Good placement options are an important motivation driver for students in their Career Planning.

Personality Driven: Most of the people choose their interest field on the basis of their personality and character. It can be the other way around also,  when a career chooses them based on their personality. Here personality includes not only the outward presentation of a student but the perception he/she holds about society. A good communicator, who has good command on his/her language skills, is more inclined towards a mass communication stream. Similarly, a good leader who has the capacity to influence masses chooses a management field. Personality traits always help in deciding a good career, for it is easy to hone the skills we already acquire.

Affordability (Paisa): This is the basic and the most essential criterion for most of them who set out to make their career. Affordability or Paisa in lay man’s language determines the purchasing power of  individuals who dares to dream. In India, when Right to Education aims to ensure education for all, it fails to distribute the standard quality of education. One, who can afford it, can only receive the ace quality training, knowledge and plum opportunities. Most of the students neglect their interest and choose a career that fits their pocket well.

Brig. Setia says” Career choice should not be based on any particular model or concept. One should choose his/her career on the basis of his interest in a particular area. The above mention model of 7 P’s can only be an influential factor in the career selection process, it should not be the criterion for Career Planning”.

Career Planning is essential to ensure a successful and enriching work life.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

MBA is not an academic degree, It teaches you how to work with people.

MBA stands for Masters in Public Advertisement+ Administration + Governance in Manav Rachna International University (MRIU).

The Director of Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Mrs. Chavi Bhargav Sharma, at Manav Rachna International University (MRIU) has defined MBA degree in a new perspective.

Talking strongly against the current archaic system of education, Mrs. Bharghav, popular for her passion for teaching, believes that MBA is a course that teaches you 'how to deal with people'. The art of communicating and doing business with people is the basic quality trained in a MBA course.

MBA is one of the most sought after degrees in the world. It is the most preferred choice of graduates from different streams as every Industry requires a Manager, an Administrator, a Communicator and an HR to run the show. This plump post hence requires maximum hands-on training to match with the dynamic nature of the subject. 

There is no one standard procedure of dealing with people/situations as an administrator or a manager. Life skills of dealing with people and a situation, is the most essential quality to be learnt by a MBA student. This requires enhancing one’s leadership quality. Some of the most important chapters in a MBA course include:
  •   Leadership
  •   Management 
  •   Advertisement
  •   Communication
  •   Profit 
  •   Partnership
Most of the above mentioned topics are basically a comprehensive study on ‘how to convert situation into your profit model along with creation of a valuable product for the society”. This practical study requires continuous training for students in an industrial training atmosphere. This will also provide students with enough opportunities to think out of the box.

Catering to the above requirement, MRIU focuses its MBA programme primarily on the employabilty factor of its students. Following the UGC curriculum for MBA, MRIU has initiated a specialized skill training programme-STEPPES (Structured Training for Enhancing Personnel and Professional Employ-ability Skill).

This unique programme, as a part of the two year course, gives practical training and knowledge on skill development. This helps in increasing the employabilty factor of students. There are two papers covered under this study which includes:
  •  Live skill Training
  •  and Communication Skill Enhancement
Encouraging a skill based training exercise; MRIU has launched a special skill centric training workshop in collaboration with big corporate houses like KPMG, Fortis and ITC. Students derive immense benefit from this additional training session as it opens the entry door of some big corporate houses, giving them a fair chance to prove their employablity skills for hiring.

This year for the first time MRIU has launched its dual degree MBA Program that allows students to acquire internationally accepted degree of learning. During the two year course via Faculty exchange programmes and a blend in the curriculum with the Napier University in UK, MRIU will be providing a dual degree MBA certification to its students.

Talking about the newly introduced Dual Degree programme and the purpose of affiliating with an International training Institute Mrs. Bharghav said, “I believe it is extremely important at this point in time, to give global exposure to the students. The process of learning a skill cannot be limited to one paradigm or pattern. In order to excel and accomplish the art of performing with your management skills, it becomes imperative to be exposed to a dynamic environment".

MBA is not an academic degree rather it is a continuous process of learning, says Mrs. Bharghav. She added, “It is just like swimming, where one needs to practice to stay abreast with the skill and improve its performance each time".

A skill centric curriculum and a practical teaching paradigm can make MBA degree course more valuable and the students employable.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

What has failed our education system in India?

Education system in India carries the colonial baggage shouldered by us for decades now. It is a structure that was built to produce civil servants, clerks and bureaucrats who could do the routine job. Not much has changed in the objective of our education system, even today. Now we have engineers being produced in bulk creating imbalance in the demand and supply in the job market.

 The same old rote learning mentality of students to score the highest marks, holds priority not only for the students but their guiding angels (parents and teachers). There is a thin line drawn between an educated and talented individual. Anyone with a first class degree is preferred over a hardworking and talented student, who scores in an average slot.

 The impact becomes larger when the marking trend overshadows the interest of a student, making him/her incompetent in the real corporate world. The career graph of an individual is rather drafted on the basis of the report card marks.

What makes the situation even more bizarre is the fact that with more and more students frequently and routinely scoring 90% marks, in their board exams, have raised the cut off bar for the college/university to an impractical score.
 This further narrows down the entry door limit, leaving a major of students chunk of in the mediocre bracket.  The recent roll back of the four year undergraduate programme (FYUP) introduced in Delhi University, was another example of a confused education paradigm of universities.

 More than 70% of the course structure focuses on preparing its students for their best performance in the examination and does not pay heed to the teaching process. In this attempt we often see that some intelligent students, who are not good performers in class written tests, are often left behind and challenged in their career path.

 Education which was meant to reform human behavior appears to have failed to achieve its goal, rather it has further confused students in their directed path. The lack of a standard method of learning/ teaching has made 'a particular course'  different  for different individual. 

MBA students who have acquired the degrees from different colleges/universities are unknown to the standard idea of the management course. Some universities prefer to stick around the old rhetorical academic syllabus without implementation of new ideas; while some have become totally skill-centric following a western pattern of educational paradigm.

Who are the ultimate sufferers?

In this process it is ultimately the economy that suffers. Lack of skilled employable students leads to ineffective growth in the industry and increasing rate of joblessness in the country. Jobs are then filled in by semi-skilled people who do not contribute to the industry in the required manner.

According to the 2011 census, increasing  literacy rate in the country, from 12% (1947) to nearly  74.04 %, has not made a real growth in the literate class. Learning the basic English language and fundamentals of different subject matter is a a half-hearted attempt towards the bigger goal of producing intellectuals who can then contribute in the society and industry.

 What should be the road-map ahead?

It is imperative for educational institutes to instill the zeal of learning and practising knowledge in students. A balanced course structure including the theoretical, practical and industrial training is apt for a complete graduation course.

It is important for universities to train its students for the final deliverance so that the corporate houses can save a lot of training cost on their employees. This can further strength the competitive standards of all the universities as well as create a healthy job market.

Manav Rachna International University(MRIU) much acclaimed for producing highly skilled and employable batch of students excelling in their respective field has set out an amended model of education, which allows it students to choose their method of learning as per their skills and capacity.

Students at MRIU are not only provided with the best infrastructural and research resource to keep them updated with the latest technology but they are given an upgraded industrial training from time to time, to enhance their adaptability in the changing industrial environment.

Students from MRIU find it easy to fit into the dynamic and changing work environment as they have been trained on the ground, under the guidance of experts from the academia as well as by the professionals from the real corporate world.

Students today need to re-create their learning paradigm as with advancement in technology and evolution of time, it is difficult to achieve excellence with the old archaic method of education practised in greater part of the country today.

It is true to believe the saying " I was born intelligent but education ruined me"; in order to change this distorted thought we need to restart our defunct body of education and overhaul it with a progressive and innovative approach.