Career counselling for classes 10 and 12 by Jitin Chawla

On 27th February, 2017, Jitin Chawla, well-known career counsellor, was invited to our School to guide students and their parents with information about the various new career options. The interactive career counseling session was for the present batches of classes 10th and 12th alongwith their parents.

Mr. Chawla is an eminent educationist and career counsellor. Presently he is Director at the Centre for Career Development, which does Aptitude Testing, Career Workshops, Career Fairs and conducts workshops for students, teachers and parents.

The session began with a role play initiated by Mr. Chawla, with a girl-student of class 10. He posed as a student himself and asked the girl, his classmate to pose as his mom. They then enacted the conflict between mom and son over sending the son overseas for further study.

Mr. Chawla informed the audience about the various subject streams and subject combinations. A brief description of the most sought-after and conventional career options followed.

While discussing the future, students look for benefits, social perks, leisure for themselves; some also seek glamour and power. The average Indian by nature seems to prefer the ' secure' type of job options, he said.

Mr. Chawla discussed how career planning is a continuous process. He analysed how one can soul search and understand what exactly we are looking for in a career. He spoke about helping us identify what we want, what our aptitudes are and accordingly, how we should choose suitable career options.

Mr. Chawla emphasised upon how we, students and our parents, need to alter our opinions about science being for toppers, commerce for those who have family business and humanities for the ones who score less! All the 3 streams offer a variety of careers like, Physics-Chemistry-Biology offers, not only MBBS, but also opportunities for pharmaceuticals, biotechnology etc. Similarly, those opting for Physics-Chemistry-Math have options other than engineering, for example- merchant navy, computer science, the agricultural industry, dairy technology etc. Those looking for options in Commerce without Math and Humanities also have good options like- journalism, creative writing, film-making, and travel writing, hotel management, civil services, designer crafts, law etc. Commerce with Math also offers a variety of courses like- the actuarial sciences, BCA, B.Com (H), BMS, BBA, etc.

Mr. Chawla spoke about the different colleges and universities in India, which offer courses, like the Masters in Development; also English courses at IIT Chennai and Mumbai, etc. He described the process for the CAT etc.

Mallika Mukim, X-E.