The thought of choosing a career starts the day someone asks a child “What do you want to be in your life”. So children start looking around who their favourite person is, and who can be a role model. Most of the time it is either their parents or teacher and also sometimes any of the relatives. The seed of this process continues to grow in case everything goes right and the child ends up making decisions based on that. In cases where students develop some other interests or get exposure to other fields, it creates confusion in their minds about whether going towards that career will be worthwhile or whether parents will agree to that or not.
Scoring more in any subject becomes a point to select related career options. The place where a child grew up becomes a major factor that influences his or her future as availability and accessibility to a certain type of education will be pre-decided.
As the words themselves say, it’s the career path, which means it starts from somewhere and leads to somewhere.

Planning Career Path
The main factors that need to be kept in mind before starting to design a student’s career path are:
Family and Family environment
Friends and neighbourhood
Academics of child
Potential and personality type of child
What phase of school life the planning is starting
Financial background
Confidence in the overall plan
Placement guarantee
Need for Plan B

Previous knowledge, research and willingness to explore at the parent and student’s end play an important role in decision making. How much guidance and data is available for the chosen career is the second most important aspect? Parents and students need to be aware of whether the targeted goal is realistic and achievable or not. Based on that it should be decided what should be an alternate option that can be pursued in parallel. Depending upon the student’s potential and other circumstances sometimes more than one plan may also be required.

Subjects selected by students and the basis of selection that, if explored, will help in removing the roadblocks if any there in reaching the final decision.

Hobby Vs Career
A hobby is an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time while a career is an occupation undertaken for a significant period of time and with opportunities of earning money and financial stability.
The clarity in mind about which hobby can be chosen as a career should be there. Interest in certain activities and aptitude are two different things. The career chosen must have some financial security. A hobby can be pursued part-time if it is not of the kind that is helping in monetary gains.
Where interest and aptitude are conflicting or wide differences are there, parents or teachers can take the help of a career counsellor who can conduct the psychometric test as and when needed for further help in decision making and selecting the best route to success.

Who Needs Guidance?
Students may need guidance in cases where they are clear in their selection of stream and they are clear in their aptitude and interest but they don’t have any guidance or trusted source for correct college selection. Then there are students who are aware of where to study but are not sure whether pursuing a particular course will lead them to the best possible job prospects or not.
Students who have clarity in stream selection, aptitude, college information and placement guarantee but either have struggles in convincing parents for that particular field means communication gap between parents and students which may be because of a lack of adequate data or information.
Parents sometimes have their own bias for any career option which may be because of their life experiences or environment. Girls most of the time failed to convince their families of their dream careers just because their family doesn’t feel safe for that particular lifestyle related to the jobs offered after pursuing that educational qualification.
Correct timing of planning and proper guidance can solve the maximum of the above-said problems.

How To Guide?
The answer to the question of how to guide students lies in the following questions:
Are they open to reaching out for guidance?
Are they aware of their confusion?
Do they know the difference between interest and aptitude?
Do they trust their own abilities?
Have they tried to develop the skills required for their desired goal?
Have they shared their feelings and emotions related to that decision ever?
Knowing about open-mindedness, willingness to share what confusion is troubling, and which part of likes and dislikes can act as a hindrance in achieving the target. Confidence in the decision and working hard to gain that, Evaluating every step of the decision and planning can resolve all the major problems.

Planning At Right Time
No two individuals are the same so it is the case of time to start planning for a career. Although planning early definitely will give time to explore and collect adequate data, guidance at any level will also be helpful in avoiding any wrong steps.
Consulting in grade eighth will help students who need to choose major subjects right from grade nine in certain boards of the education system. Making the right stream selection leads to the right colleges and the right college reaches the right placement.
Timely planning can help develop the required skill sets for a student’s opted career.
So putting up what, how, when, and where in correct order any child can be guided to their dream career.

If you want to understand a child’s requirements and help him/her out with career-making decisions, this blog will help you. To know more about the career counselling process and upskill yourself, become a Global Career Counsellor. It is an online training program for individuals who want to make their mark in the field of career counselling. Irrespective of their educational and professional backgrounds, people are joining this industry and upskilling themselves with this course by Univariety in collaboration with UCLA Extension.
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