This year’s The Hindu EducationPlus Career Counselling session here on Sunday provided an opportunity for students and subject experts to interact and helpstudents make an informed career choices.
One example was when a girl asked how the life was of a medical student . “You should be prepared to study at least 12 hours a day and memorise,” replied Rohan Chandra R. Gatty, Head, Department of Surgical Oncology, Father Muller Medical College and a cancer surgeon.
Dr. Gatty said that initially the large number of pages of medical books might put off MBBS students from memorising its contents. But slowly, students would get used to reading, and memorising would get easier, he said. Students were not the only ones curious about courses — several parents, too, had questions to clarify. “My daughter wants to study astrophysics. Where is it offered?” said a woman. Replying to her, Ameen E. Mudassar, chief executive officer, CIGMA, Bangalore, and a counsellor, said that Indian Institute of Space Science Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, and Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, offered courses in that field.
Mr. Mudassar threw light on a number of courses, including para-medicine and humanities that were available for study besides engineering and medicine. He asked students to think out of the box, select a career by understanding what they were good at and follow a less travelled path in selecting careers.
Rajesh Gratian D’Souza, Head, Department of Civil Engineering, P.A. College of Engineering, said that a student studying engineering should be strong in mathematics and science and should have good analytical skills to excel in the career. He suggested students who were interested in pursuing postgraduation in engineering to select such branches at the undergraduate level, which were also there at the postgraduate level in many colleges.
K. Jagadeevandas Bhandary, Nodal Officer, Mangalore Help Desk of the Karnataka Examinations Authority explained the document verification round, on-line option entry, fee payment, and the process of surrendering seats. He said only one set of photocopies of documents should be brought during the document verification round.
