For more than 600 students — at the crossroads of their fledgling career — The Hindu Education Plus Career Counselling, held in Mangalore and Udupi on Sunday, helped settle their dilemmas and chart out their future.
After attending the counselling in Mangalore, hosted by Sri Ramakrishna College, Anushree M.A, who cleared II PU from St. Aloysius College this year, said, “I am interested in doing a paramedical course. Hearing the experts today helped me know the options available”.
The experts or resource persons for the counselling sessions — organised to help students make an informed career choice after PUC or Class 12 — came from various backgrounds, but the running advice for the students was: “Follow your heart, and not always your parents”.
Speaking as the chief guest at the Mangalore session, Shantharam Shetty, orthopaedician and Pro Vice Chancellor, Nitte University, urged the parents, especially the mother, to find and encourage the talent within children. He recalled a classmate, a talented tennis player who was forced to become a doctor. The game was forgotten and he became an ordinary doctor. Students should not be pushed into professions chosen by their parents but instead should take up what they are interested in.
In Udupi, delivering the keynote address, G. Pradeep Kumar, Dean of Kasturba Medical College (KMC), Manipal, said that students should try to get complete information on the career they intend to pursue. He also released the handbook, The Great Leap, at the session organised at MGM College. This is the fourth edition of the counselling session in Udupi.
Dr. Kumar said full information about their choice would give them a better idea about the profession, and whether it suited them or not. He said there was nothing wrong if after one or two years, if they felt that they had not made the right choice and changed their career. “One or two years was not going to make much of a difference,” said Dr. Kumar.
However, he warned students not to get carried away advertisements or brand names of colleges. “They should visit the campus and check if the college has good faculty, well-equipped laboratory, well-stacked library and quality infrastructure.”
Medicine, Engineering
K. Mohan Pai, former Professor of Medicine, Kasturba Medical College (KMC), said that studying medicine required dedication, intelligence, compassion, being able to act in the nick of time, and energy. It is a field full of challenges and requires courage to pursue.
K.V. Gangadharan, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT-K, asked students to “choose a good institute than the branch (of engineering), study with better ranked students and play with the better to improve”.
Fisheries
Iqlas Ahmed, Associate Professor of Aquaculture, College of Fisheries, said fisheries is a multidisciplinary course involving chemistry, economics, technology and environmental science. A student could take up B.F.Sc, M.F.Sc and Ph.D and get jobs in government or corporate sector, take up research, start an aquafarm or be self employed.
Loans
In Udupi, Vishwanath Kotekar, Chief Manager of State Bank of India, spoke on various loans for students pursuing higher education.
Sponsors
State Bank of India was the title sponsor for the event. The associate sponsors were Dr. T. Thimmaiah Institute of Technology, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Sambhram Institute of Technology, Padmashree Group of Institutions, Rajarajeswari Medical College and Hospital, and Beary’s Institute of Technology, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka; CIPET; MGM College, Udupi; and NSS unit of Sri Ramakrishna College, Mangalore.
