Choosing career for our kids-what is the best way?

<blockquote>
Hello this is in reference to my post below which I posted in
response to another topic regarding how desi parents 'force' their kids
to choose a professional degree and discourage them from taking Arts or
basic sciences. My point was, what is the best way for us to ensure that
our kids make that right first choice? Well after they choose their
paths, then they are on their own but after X or XII what is the best
way to decide if Arts, Commerce or Science is best for them? What is
your opinion on the Aptitude Test (Career Tests) that they administer in
various schools which tests the career that will suit your personality
the most? What is a way to tell that you kid will turn out to be a
leader or a follower? How much should we believe the results of this
tests? What if the test says that your son or daughter are fit to work
for an NGO or to be a Nurse?? Will you daughter be a big shot business
woman or end up in a mediocre job as a receptionist somewhere? I am
always scared about how my kids will end up. Which according you is the
most decisive online available Aptitude test out there?




MaxEntropy_Man wrote:<blockquote>
Jeremiah
Mburuburu wrote:on a career decision:

"Today I told my parents that there is no way in hell that I am going
to medical school and that I want to do, God forbid, mathematics. My parents
told me I'm a disgrace. MLID."

-- jlakhanpal (man)</blockquote>


i think it is truly the very very liberal indian parent who is totally cool
with any major a kid chooses. most of us have that line drawn somewhere. a
mathematics major wouldn't cause me any heartburn whatsoever, but if i had to be
brutally honest, if my kid came up to me and said she wanted to be a theater or
music major it would give me some non-negligible heartburn. and it's not that i
am not self aware that i have this problem, and i also know the reasons for it
well. i don't want her to choose as her primary profession, one in which the
path to some basic and reasonable material well being is incredibly difficult
with no guarantees of any kind. having said that if i found that she was truly
passionate about something, i'd swallow my concerns and do whatever i can to
help her succeed. were you totally and completely ok with anything they chose
to do?</blockquote>

It's got nothing to do with being liberal or not. The point is , if your
child is failing in his career when he is a grown up- there is
absolutely nothing you can do as a parent. I want to share that not
doing a
professional degree is the biggest regret of my life. I consider myself
very
intelligent, but a wrong early career choice has ruined my whole career
trajectory and I had to work extra hard to make as much money as my
peers.
My parents urged that I prepare for the JEE, CATs and medical exams.
They even
put me in a coaching class to get an MBA after a later stage, but I
ignored all
their requests. I will give you three examples.

Ex 1: A student has thirst for knowledge. Doesn't want to take the beaten path.
While all his friends are appearing for AIIMS exams, he chooses to do BSc
Chemistry. Does an MSc and then a PhD and then a Post Doc from abroad. Makes a
second mistake of choosing a 'what-hes-passionate-about', but niche field-
Nuclear Chemistry. Total time since XII 3+2+6+4. Fifteen (15) years of just specializing
in Chemistry post highschool. No Academic jobs abroad so comes back to India.
Working in a college teaching Chemistry to uninterested college kids for Rs
10,000 a month. (Thats $200 a month). Looks for jobs, no jobs. Even more
difficult to enter academia in India. So left with no choice but to do a 2nd
post doc in India. As you can imagine, doing science in India turned out to be
a very frustrating nightmare of an experience (will spare you the
details). Finally settling for any odd-job related to science, willing to do
anything as long as it pays him at least 50K INR a month. He is 35.

Ex 2: A student has thirst for knowledge. Doesn't want to take the beaten path.
She is not good at Math so does not even think of doing Engg. While all her friends
are appearing for AIIMS exams, she chooses to do BSc. Then an MSc. Due to
personal/marriage/relationship kind of issues she is unable to do a PhD. She is
smarter than most PhDs in her workplace. She as trained many postdocs. She is
very intelligent. But where is she now? Has to constantly accept jobs
that are far less than her caliber.

Ex 3: A friend who took music as a major in India, was bright enough to get a
scholarship to study at Berklee School of Music (one of the best in the
country). Is brilliant, is 35 and makes USD 50 K a year.


I will NEVER let my kids make the mistake I made. I will not let them get
influenced by movies like 3-idiots. I will warn them repeatedly of all the
hardships they will have to go through by choosing a non-conventional career. I
will run an exhaustive list of all the poor, starving, artists, singers, poets,
painters, writers, musicians, and scientists I know. I will tell them exactly
how much salary these people make at every stage and age in their career.
I will also show as an example all the doctors, engineers, architects, IITian,
MBAs, CAs friends I have. I will tell them like you rightly pointed, that that
just being "passionate" about a non-conventional career is not
enough. They have to absolutely make sure that they are nothing but the best. I
will tell them that you can be a mediocre doctor or an engineer and still lead
a more than comfortable life. But there are no 'mediocre' in arts and sciences.
You are either outstanding, or you perish. If you are passionate about
journalism, you need to be a Prnaoy Roy, if you passionate about painting you
need to an MF Hussain, if you are passionate about playing Sarod, you need to
be Amjad Ali Khan, if you are passionate about bollywood choreography you need
to be Shamak Dawar or a Farah Khan, and if passionate about Chemistry then you
need to be a Venkatraman Ramakrishnan or at least a highflying scientist at
Harvard or one of honchos at a top pharma company.

Please look around you to see thousands of examples of why parents were right,
at least in this regard. Around the same time I was busy rebelling against my
parents for forcing me to take medical exams, they also warned me against
getting a tatto. And I did, on my fore arm and neck. And just like the
the wrong career choice I made back in college (as back then I thought that was
my calling), I realize how almost irreparable this damage is.

My point is, with this 'newage soft parenting' thing, we are underestimating
the huge damage our kids’ choices about their "passion" and
"calling" can have on their life. And they are pretty much
irreparable. The only thing that can set this straight is perhaps doing an MBA
in your middleage or something, but then that is such a humongous waste
of all of their time during their youth they could have devoted to having a
real career.

Kumarg

Posts: 17
Join date: 2012-05-08

you may post a link here

Let me try.

https://such.forumotion.com/t6183-a-whole-lota-fun#49731

Interesting topic. I want to see what others say. I have a son going to
college next year. He is still not sure what he wants to be/what major
he wants to take in college. I want to see what other parents are going
to do to help their child make that decision.

kinnera wrote:Let me try.

https://such.forumotion.com/t6183-a-whole-lota-fun#49731

Interesting topic. I want to see what others say. I have a son going to
college next year. He is still not sure what he wants to be/what major
he wants to take in college. I want to see what other parents are going
to do to help their child make that decision.

>>>I think the the idea that people have a real passion for something and know it by high school is quite exaggerated. Yes, many people probably have a sense of what they are good at broadly, but this gets fine-tuned as they progress through life. Sometimes a burning passion is uncovered, sometimes not. In view of this, my general advice would be to get a basic education that gives you a skill set that you can fall back on, based on what you think your interests are. This supplemented with the general ed requirements of the undergraduate curriculum (at least in the US) gives you enough of a base to make you a reasonably well-rounded person. If you start off with that and later want to pursue a specialized interest in a different field, the system allows you the flexibility to go back to school for that. It may be a professional school, it may be just taking classes on a part-time basis, it may even be grad school, if you are willing to devote the time to meet the pre-req requirements. Of course, for those few people who do know they want to be a doctor or an architect or whatever else out the chute, these rules won't apply.

if you have the calling, nothing can stop you -- not your parents and not your education. look around. this is india. yet, we have so many artists, painters, musicians and actors.

you do not have to attend a school of drama to learn acting or study literature or creative writing to be a writer. but you have to go to college to learn the sciences (even that is changing and i will come to it later).

chetan bhagat, iit-iim educated, is a writer. palash sen, founder of the music band euphoria, is a doctor. abhay deol holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy. gurcharan das and arun joshi, corporate czars, became writers during or after their corporate careers, the former of non-fiction and the latter of fiction. bickram ghosh, a famour percussionist, is a masters in english from jadavpur university.

education is going through a revolutionary change today. we do not realize this and are stuck in the mindset of what education used to be in our times. the questions asked in this thread are frankly redundant for the future will offer a lot of flexibility in undergraduate education. in the wise words of iff,

from chat today:
-----------------------------------------------
(11:21:35) Iff: internet is there for all knowledge
(11:21:46) Iff: college is for official certification of your skills
(11:30:28) Iff: colleges will become increasingly redundant
------------------------------------------------

note: iff is blabberwock

there are secondary school students whose knowledge in specific subjects is equivalent to that taught at an undergraduate level -- accomplished at home through internet courses offered by universities like MIT & stanford and internet sites like coursea, udacity, OCW etc. and there was a time when s. ramanujan had to reinvent the wheel because he only had one book on advanced trignometry by s. l. loney to learn from.

the future lies in plummeting college fees and learning via video conferencing and internet. campuses will become redundant -- except perhaps for post graduate studies. or, perhaps, only 1 year residency will be required out of 4 for undergraduate studies.

If I get asked,

Learn the skills to predictably and consistently perform above expectations in a field with occasional bursts of innovation to make tangible differences to the state of the art/technology.

Choose a field where you either Like what you do, like the end results or like the people you are doing it with.

A little exercise:

Imagine a future or futures 15/20 years out, and note your predictions for different fields, talk to a few people for reality check. Visualize yourself immersed in the content of a few select career choices in that future - what seems to fit?

Spend 500 bucks on http://www.jocrf.org/ or cut a gift check.

atcg wrote:If I get asked,

Learn the skills to predictably and consistently perform above expectations in a field with occasional bursts of innovation to make tangible differences to the state of the art/technology.

Choose a field where you either Like what you do, like the end results or like the people you are doing it with.

A little exercise:

Imagine a future or futures 15/20 years out, and note your predictions for different fields, talk to a few people for reality check. Visualize yourself immersed in the content of a few select career choices in that future - what seems to fit?

Spend 500 bucks on http://www.jocrf.org/ or cut a gift check.

sabhaash ! sariyaga soneergaL

My take is that you should do what you are really best at - you will get
recognized at some point with fame and funds - the q is how does one arrive at that
what you do best - random priming for a limited time should tell.

on 15/20 years prediction - its like launching a new drug discovery project with SWOT -would you agree ?

thanks for all the posts. Interesting read all of them. Pardon me but
yet - 'choose what you are best at' is still a very generic (and
potentially dangerous) advice I can give to my kids. What if my son or
daughter say that they want to be a Nurse? What if the AptitudeTest says
that my kid will make a good 'follower' as opposed to a 'leader'? I
wonder if being successful in one's career is written in their genes
("Aptitude") or does EACH one of has what it takes to be a CEO of a
company/a big Doctor/ Engineer etc? With so many variables needed for
success, I am not sure if I should give my kids the usual lecture that
with 'hardwork' and 'persistence' everything is possible. Maybe that is
not true, as in my personal life as an adult, I have seen so many
sincere hardworking people struggling and not getting their due. Maybe
then it is in the genes for some people to be Mediocre while others to
Excel.

Kumarg wrote:thanks for all the posts. Interesting read all of them. Pardon me but
yet - 'choose what you are best at' is still a very generic (and
potentially dangerous) advice I can give to my kids. What if my son or
daughter say that they want to be a Nurse? What if the AptitudeTest says
that my kid will make a good 'follower' as opposed to a 'leader'? I
wonder if being successful in one's career is written in their genes
("Aptitude") or does EACH one of has what it takes to be a CEO of a
company/a big Doctor/ Engineer etc? With so many variables needed for
success, I am not sure if I should give my kids the usual lecture that
with 'hardwork' and 'persistence' everything is possible. Maybe that is
not true, as in my personal life as an adult, I have seen so many
sincere hardworking people struggling and not getting their due. Maybe
then it is in the genes for some people to be Mediocre while others to
Excel.

How so...like I said because you excel in it, you will get recognition and rewards that should make you happy to continue in that profession.. I hope your What if my son was not connected to the previous and was kind of next para??

Kumarg wrote:What if my son or
daughter say that they want to be a Nurse?

what exactly is wrong in wanting to be a nurse?

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Kumarg wrote:What if my son or
daughter say that they want to be a Nurse?

what exactly is wrong in wanting to be a nurse?

you beat me to the Q that needed to be asked!

garam_kuta wrote:

kumarg wrote: 'choose what you are best at' is still a very generic (and
potentially dangerous) advice I can give to my kids.

How so...like I said because you excel in it, you will get recognition and rewards that should make you happy to continue in that profession.. I hope your What if my son was not connected to the previous and was kind of next para??

kumarg is right. if you want to pursue an artsy or performing artsy field, there will be a "calling." the calling will find you -- you or your kid does not have to search for it. "choose what you are best at" is a dangerous advice and should not be confused with a "calling." if your kid does not get "called," put him through the parent-ally advised engineering, medicine or lawyer education.

hanif kureshi, in intimacy, wryly makes fun of this aspect. his father was an unsuccessful but aspiring playwright (with a daytime job i'd imagine) but he disciplined kursehi to write. he taught and made him follow a regimen -- sit and write during these few hours before sunset type. kureshi rebelled and never followed his father's dictates. yet, he became an artist. intimacy has no plot, no substance and goes nowhere. he writes in it that his father was wrong and if an artist writes, whatever he produces will be a work of art. intimacy is among the most artistic novels i have read.

if your kid has not been "called" stop expecting that he will be. if he will be "called" he won't consult you for advice.

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:if he will be "called" he won't consult you for advice.

100 times:

if he is "called," he won't consult you for advice.

if he is "called," he won't consult you for advice.

if he is "called," he won't consult you for advice.

........

[/quote] what exactly is wrong in wanting to be a nurse?[/quote]


This:

"but if i had to be brutally honest, if my kid came up to me and said she
wanted to be a theater or music major it would give me some
non-negligible heartburn. and it's not that i am not self aware that i
have this problem, and i also know the reasons for it well. i don't
want her to choose as her primary profession, one in which the path to
some basic and reasonable material well being is incredibly difficult
with no guarantees of any kind."

you are quoting something that i wrote and i am not sure i see the connection. nursing offers a path to make a good living here in the US where i live. i would have no problems whatsoever if either of my children wanted to pursue the nursing profession. none.

i don't want her to choose as her primary profession, one in which the path to
some basic and reasonable material well being is incredibly difficult
with no guarantees of any kind."

______

Leaving aside the noble profession aspects of being a Nurse (in reality..most Doctors can't function well without Nurse(s). I enormously admire and appreciate them!

It is the exact reverse when it comes to job guarantee..A Nurse is "fully guaranteed" of finding work..no matter which level (Nurse Practitioner, RN- Registered Nurse, LPN or associate degree in Nursing, Nursing Aide, Home Health Nurse..can go on..with specialization in Nursing degrees..which are ever expanding!)

Nurses are so much in demand..they can demand good money..set their own hours!

i want to become a pa now. if i go for nursing, it will pack my rents up fast track. so ya, pa maybe.

Maria S wrote:i don't want her to choose as her primary profession, one in which the path to
some basic and reasonable material well being is incredibly difficult
with no guarantees of any kind."

______

Leaving aside the noble profession aspects of being a Nurse (in reality..most Doctors can't function well without Nurse(s). I enormously admire and appreciate them!

It is the exact reverse when it comes to job guarantee..A Nurse is "fully guaranteed" of finding work..no matter which level (Nurse Practitioner, RN- Registered Nurse, LPN or associate degree in Nursing, Nursing Aide, Home Health Nurse..can go on..with specialization in Nursing degrees..which are ever expanding!)

Nurses are so much in demand..they can demand good money..set their own hours!

maria: you are quoting kumarG quoting me. unfortunately he just cut and pasted something i wrote without correctly attributing it to me. i am fully aware of employability in the nursing business in the US.

who are what is a "pa"?

physician's assistant.

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:if he will be "called" he won't consult you for advice.

100 times:

if he is "called," he won't consult you for advice.

if he is "called," he won't consult you for advice.

if he is "called," he won't consult you for advice.

........

irrelevant!

Tracy Whitney wrote: if i go for nursing, it will pack my rents up fast track.

thanks for answering the previous q. now what does the sentence above mean? why would your rent go up if you went in for the nursing profession? i thought you owned your home.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Tracy Whitney wrote: if i go for nursing, it will pack my rents up fast track.

thanks for answering the previous q. now what does the sentence above mean? why would your rent go up if you went in for the nursing profession? i thought you owned your home.

that was said in a jest, mainly meaning to indicate disappointment.

too many pre-reqs, and licenses, and continuing education. forget it. let me go buy a lottery ticket instead.

http://www.physicianassistant.cc/how-to-become-a-physician-assistant/how-to-become-a-physician-assistant

That's fine Max..I just responded to the statement, and as always, I don't keep up with all the posts in any thread!

Tracy, on a serious note..a few years will go by fast.

I just wish that my kids don't chose medicine as their profession. I don't want them to be around sick ppl all the time.

My Dad forced me into med school and luckily for me I quit after 3 months of school. I then joined law school and did computers from NIIT and then decided computers are my calling and that's that. I am 60% happy with my decision and could've done engineering over Law...but then console myself that Law involves crime and I would've helped so many ppl get divorce and that is something I would've enjoyed Good for the society!! Many ppl are saved! Still that 40% is a big percentage.

Tracy Whitney wrote:i want to become a pa now. if i go for nursing, it will pack my rents up fast track. so ya, pa maybe.

I thought nursing is a notch (maybe more notches above PA, if you choose to do a specialization in nursing). Isn't physician assistant equivalent to a compounder in India? Both your doc parents should prefer nursing over PA.

Kris wrote:

kinnera wrote:Let me try.

https://such.forumotion.com/t6183-a-whole-lota-fun#49731

Interesting topic. I want to see what others say. I have a son going to
college next year. He is still not sure what he wants to be/what major
he wants to take in college. I want to see what other parents are going
to do to help their child make that decision.

>>>I think the the idea that people have a real passion for something and know it by high school is quite exaggerated. Yes, many people probably have a sense of what they are good at broadly, but this gets fine-tuned as they progress through life. Sometimes a burning passion is uncovered, sometimes not. In view of this, my general advice would be to get a basic education that gives you a skill set that you can fall back on, based on what you think your interests are. This supplemented with the general ed requirements of the undergraduate curriculum (at least in the US) gives you enough of a base to make you a reasonably well-rounded person. If you start off with that and later want to pursue a specialized interest in a different field, the system allows you the flexibility to go back to school for that. It may be a professional school, it may be just taking classes on a part-time basis, it may even be grad school, if you are willing to devote the time to meet the pre-req requirements. Of course, for those few people who do know they want to be a doctor or an architect or whatever else out the chute, these rules won't apply.

Thanks for the response, Kris. We are telling him to do engineering as it's something safer to fall back on. He's open to that idea. Next year he'll be doing AP Econ. Says if he likes that, will major in economics. He has taken and will will take a variety of AP courses to be well rounded and have a feel for all the subjects. His area of interest changes from day to day though .