INDIATODAY.IN NEW DELHI, MAY 5, 2016 | UPDATED 13:13 IST
The dangerous trends in the name of competition are much in need of immediate attention. Take a look.
In the recent past, India has been discussed academically for all reasons, good and bad. Right from New Zealand welcoming it's second largest foreign investment in the form of students from India, to obsession over making Sanskrit an integral part in the CBSE curriculum, people have been flooded with academic enhancements or so they may say.
Every other day, there are incessant household debates over what is best for the little one. Whether engineering is yet the most secure profession or doctor is the most respectable of all titles, all this is quite a notable dilemma as students ponder over "what next". However, despite a recent and open inclination of students towards creativity, disapproval from the guardian's end continues to be the kids' halt station.
Here, we enlist a number of trends among students these days. Whether fortunate or not, you may take the call:
1. Suicidal tendencies: Giving up too soon
Two problems becoming popular trends are parental and peer pressure that dwell upon sub-conscious tender minds. What parents don't realise is that there is a pressure that builds with time and it only grows for the worse.
Sixty eight-year-old Dr. Manjula Srivastava, a psychologist based in Gorakhpur, puts forth a couple of issues that she's understood over time from her patients:
- Consistent nagging from parents leads to under-confidence
- Parents play a significant role but that remain constrained to a certain age. It is necessary to "give them space" after appoint in life
- Under-confidence leads to acute depression that in most cases isn't addressed properly. This in turn leads to hazardous results and life-threatening decisions like committing suicide.
Reasons for such harsh decisions are dangerously prodigious. It must be the responsibility of a guardian to understand and practice the art of generous, non-accusing convincing for their children.
2. Curbing Scope: Engineering and Medical
From time immemorial, the idea of taking up engineering and medicine as a profession has been regarded the best and safest of all, although we fail to keep a check on the changing statistics in this job-starved country that suggest a rather bleak picture.
With a good number of engineers produced by India every year, what we are lacking is the concern that there is a number within these so-called successful students, who are yet in search of jobs or looking for different prospects, diverse from their own technical streams.
While positions in the creative teams remain vacant, people working towards the 'general careers' (Engineering and Medical) sit at home still looking for jobs. Thirty-year-old Pratish Chandra sits back at home in Kanpur, still looking for a job opportunity despite being a topper in his college where he studied Mechanical Engineering.
He says, "Sometimes I curse my destiny, and sometimes myself for having taken up engineering. I am hoping the best is in store yet."
3. "Reservation" to push students abroad:
In a popular culture of moving abroad and either pursuing higher education there or taking up a job for good, the country is losing out on the gems of the field. While the career problems of those those from socially backward classes are more or less addressed, there is quite a large set belonging to the 'General Category' who may, in the time to come, feel and look like the 'NRI category'.
Vimla (name changed), 52, lost the second of the three daughters after the previous year's IIT-JEE result and cut-off schedule. The mother of two got emotional while talking about the efforts that she saw her daughter put in to make it the top-most institute of the country.
"Din raat ek kar dia tha meri beti ne. Keh rahi thi reserved ke cut off se 2 percent zyada tha. Pata nahi kya hua fir", says the innocent Vimla (name changed) as she bursts into tears. "Mere yahan toh koi media waale bhi nahi aae kahani likhne, chali gai wo chup chaap."
Not that reservation is criminal, but we really need to keep a check on the number allotted to the reserved and see that it doesn't keep increasing. Also, they may be good, who stay back in the country, but those are definitely better those th go abroad and make it to CEO's position in Google. Save them!
4. Changing streams after a technical course:
Twenty one-year-old, Saurav Bhagat, an IIT Delhi graduate plans taking up consulting and further exploring Market Research. The reason he states is that while Civil Engineering has good scope, it looks a little monotonous to him. Also Saurav adds, "Marketing is a challenging arena and calls for spontaneous, creative and communicative functioning that I feel very confident about."
Another Commerce student till her grade 12 is Nishtha Batra, who has chosen a different career option. She is making a career in advertising and has already made it to one of the finest-- Ogilvy & Mather, at the age of 21.
She says, "I did not go for a CA or B.Com because it barely offers any kind of mental or financial stability before having gone for a Master's in the same. I am not a very studious person. I am a creative one and I feel I am working in the right direction."
A student from IIM Ahmadabad talks about how the course does not offer any specialisation that works in favor of the students by giving ample scope to take up what may interest him/her. Having an insight into how the industry works is the institute's primary objective. The final decision is that of the student.
It is necessary to understand that it is all right to be a little confused in this age, one can afford to be. Also, this one's for all the guardians who may be a little upset about their child's lack of clarity of thought and understanding: BREATHE! It will be okay!
