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Why Every Student Needs a Career Counsellor To Choose a Stream

As I see it, there are two pivotal points in a student’s academic journey. First is selecting a stream after grade 10th to streamline the career domain. The second is the choice of course a student opts for after high school to pursue a definite career path. Eventually, the odds of future success rest on these two decisions. The whole point of career counselling, career guidance and collecting information is to get these decisions right, isn’t it?
Now that I have mentioned career counselling here, let us talk about it. Career counselling is a buzzword these days. Almost all schools now have professional career counsellors and apart from that, there are so many options beyond the school. Access to career mentoring is indeed a blessing for students. The question is, as a parent, do you acknowledge it? Do you realize the importance of career counselling for your child’s future?
Factually speaking, effective career counselling is the only way to choose wisely when it comes to the above-mentioned pivotal points. In this blog, we will delve into the importance of career guidance in navigating the first checkpost, i.e., stream selection.
However, before we build on that, let me first briefly explain what career counselling is. Just to be on the same page!

Career Counselling - The What

In the simplest manner, career counselling is a systematic process meant to guide individuals towards the best-suited career paths. However, it is surely not a process as simple as how it is put here.
A career counsellor exhibits effective knowledge of various career paths and their future scope. From their professional experience, they guide individuals to first develop awareness of possible careers and then choose one. This guidance involves effective personalization, realization of background, realization of strengths and limitations, along with ample research. To explain, it is an interview that you have with the visa officer of the respective country. So, if you are applying to study in Canada, a Canadian visa officer will interview you. The visa officer will assess how genuine your candidature is and what the real intent is behind moving to Canada for higher studies.

Eventually, career mentors guide individuals towards the best-fit industries or careers by

  1. Giving a clear picture of the future scope 

  2. Discussing the variations in careers within a specific field 

  3. Citing the latest and future career or employability trends 

  4. Highlighting the drawbacks of a career field 

  5. Aligning personal interests with career goals 

So, this is the most uncomplicated explanation of career counselling. Now, let me quickly move to explaining why career counselling is essential for stream selection.

Career Counselling - The Why

If your ward is in grade 9th or 10th, I have a few simple questions for you. On what grounds are you going to base your ward’s stream selection? How are you going to ensure that your child’s stream selection is best aligned with the idea of a promising future?
Now this is where I am at odds with some parents’ mindsets, Indian parents more so specifically. The majority of Indian parents still want to base their wards’ stream selection on random advice from random people. Alternatively, they go by what their friends’ children have chosen or what other successful people opted for. In this entire process, they completely overlook their child’s uniqueness and personality. I hope you are not going to be that parent!
Remember, your child will never be successful in the pursuit of being like someone else. Your child’s best chance to succeed is to dwell on their uniqueness in terms of their core competencies and interests. Every child is different after all! This is where career counselling comes into the picture. However, it is ironic that despite so much talk around it, modern parents conveniently ignore its benefits. I hope that isn’t the case after this blog!
Going forward, let me help you visualize how career counselling can facilitate the best-fit stream selection for your child.

Career Counselling - The Best Approach to Stream Selection

1. Career Counselling Exposes Your Child To a Spectrum of Careers
How many careers does your child know about as of today? Can they name 5 careers in each stream while discussing which stream is best suited for them? Most of them cannot and it is absolutely not their fault. The curriculum does increase academic knowledge but does little to tell 9th and 10th class students about career possibilities.

However, the fact of the matter is that even within a stream, there are various substreams and a plethora of careers. For instance, within the domain of business, sub-domains include business intelligence, business analytics, behavioral finance and so on. Similarly, in finance alone, there is green finance, computational finance, financial analysis and more.
Until your child completely understands the prospects a stream offers, how will they be in the best position to decide? This is where career counsellors logically help students to know about various conventional and unconventional careers across streams. They help the students see the bigger picture and then decide by explaining what a stream actually entails.

A simple question: Do you think your child will be able to have such awareness without a career counsellor? 

2. Career Counselling Helps Your Child Realize Their True Abilities

What if the stream that you want your child to opt for is not best aligned with his or her abilities and aptitude? Let’s say you want your daughter to pursue medicine and become a doctor because it was always your dream. However, what if she has better abilities in math and physics than in biology and can go on to become a successful aerospace engineer?

In contemporary times, it makes complete sense to say that stream selection should be in synchronization with abilities and aptitude. If a child does not have the ability to cope with a stream, they will struggle to build a successful career. But how can you, as parents, put this check in place? 

Again, the answer is effective and personalized career counselling. Through psychometric testing and other tools, a great career counsellor will help your child identify their true abilities. Consequently, you and your child will be able to make a well-informed decision on stream selection with little to regret later. Makes great sense, doesn’t it?

3. Career Counselling Facilitates Realization of Personality & Interests

Just like the realization of true abilities, career counselling facilitates the realization of the true personality and interests of a child. Needless to say, personality and interest do play a crucial role in career success.

Let’s try to understand this with a small example. If I aspire to be a counselling psychologist, my personality should have strong virtues of empathy and active listening. Besides, I should have an extroverted personality as counselling will require me to talk a lot in therapy sessions.
Having said that, with evaluations like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, career counsellors can help in determining the real personality type of your ward.
The same is the case with interest. The more inclined your ward’s stream is to their interest, the higher will be the motivation to perform and achieve more. Do you really think someone can be highly successful in aeronautical engineering without a crazy interest in aviation and planes? It’s just like asking someone highly interested in soccer to play tennis instead. Do you think they will have their heart and motivation in it?
Career counsellors, from the purview of their experience and counselling techniques, can help students identify both personality type and core interest. Eventually, stream selection should be relatable to ensure the prospects of success remain higher.
4. Career Counselling Offers Credible Information on Future Scope

A career your relative’s son is doing great in today may not be relevant 5 years down the line. Yes, I am not even kidding, why are you surprised? Do you think the world will need web developers and coders in the coming years with AI automation in web development? This is just one example of how careers once booming will fall flat in the coming years.

Having said that, it is essential that children and parents know what the future holds for various academic streams. This knowledge will come from logical research, analysis, and monitoring of career trends. In short, it will come from effective, reliable and credible career counselling.

5. Career Counselling Is Certainly Essential For Overseas Education
If your child’s plan is to study abroad after high school, career counselling becomes all the more essential. What most parents in my experience do not realize is the contrasting difference between the education system in India and abroad. When it comes to admissions to universities abroad, it is not entrance exams centric like it is in India.

It is rather more focused on holistic development, leadership abilities, social impact and other dimensions of a strong profile. In fact, there are study abroad scholarships for students who come with strong, holistic profiles. This is something that parents do not know and it is not their fault either. The Indian education system is designed in a way that it is all about grades and entrance exams.

Another thing that most parents and students in India are not aware of is the need to start early. Yes, if your aim is to study at top-ranked universities like Harvard University, Stanford University and LSE, you need to start as early as grade 9th. It starts with systematic profile building over the years to eventually create a very strong profile when applications begin in grade 12th.

Now, the peculiar details of starting early and how your target universities work are things that only a career counsellor can tell you the best. I rest my case here
Not sure where to find the right career counsellor who can facilitate all of the above? Well, reach out to us and benefit from our personalized and professional counselling services.
To conclude, I have said it all. All I would say is, do not ignore the need for career counselling if you really want your child to succeed. Every child is different and so should be their career paths. Stop relying on random pieces of advice that come from others’ experiences
You don’t want to put your child’s future at stake for that, do you? Career counselling is more accessible today than ever before. Make the most of it to see your child succeed.
Also Read
Why Global Exposure Matters for Your Child’s Future
Why Career Counselling in Class 9th Isn’t Too Early But Essential
Picture of Author Bio : Silver Fern

Author Bio : Silver Fern

silverfern@gmail.com

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