Why is career counseling needed for Indian students?

Indian students are smarter and more studious when it comes to learning. There are around 250 million students in the country. While there are many opportunities for you to pursue your career, you are unaware of it to choose the right one.

In a rapidly changing world, career counseling has emerged as an important source for students like you who are searching for the right platform.

What Is Career Counseling?

Career counseling is a structured process that helps you to understand yourself better. It is important for students, individuals, and professionals who are stepping into a new level: For example, you can shift from school to college or as a professional from college to workplace, or a working employee wants to switch to another employment.

Your Career Path counseling empowers you to make informed decisions. It provides guidance to improve your personality, talent, aptitude, ability, and aspiration and helps to find the right institution and job.

The career counselor helps you to build action plans, develop timelines, and find the resources required to achieve your objectives. They also help in grooming you to become a master in the specific field by assessing your personality, interests, and strengths. Also, they support building your short-term and long-term goals and the steps you need to take to reach the goals.

The counselors can assist you in developing a professional network by integrating with industry contacts, local job fairs, and networking events to expand your opportunities.

Who Needs Career Counseling?

Career counseling is required for those who have been waiting to choose their 12th grade, waiting for a job opportunity, and who are holding multiple job offers.

If you are a student and completed 10th grade, you require a counselor to discuss the 12th courses. And if you have completed 12th grade, you need a counselor’s advice to choose a profession. In addition to that, if you are an employee, you need a counselor’s advice to set your career.
If you are unemployed and have an employment gap, you can reach the counselors to prepare resumes by mentioning the employment gap effectively and adding the skills along with your relevant experience.

They will recommend courses, workshops, and certifications. Also, the counselors conduct mock interviews to increase your confidence and improve your performance.
Also if you are confused with multiple job or course opportunities, you can get ideas from the counselor to pick the suitable one.

The working professionals who need to schedule their time for all activities can gain ideas from the counselor.
There is no age limitation for you to get counseling from the counselors even if you are discontinued from any of your careers.

Important Reasons to Get Career Counseling

Less exposure to choosing a Stream

If you are a student who has completed your 10th standard and is confused about choosing the stream (major) to pursue in 12th standard, you can reach the counselors, who guide you with course information, its pros and cons in detail, and your ability so that you can choose it based on your interest. This will help you to make the right decision.

There is a possibility for the students to choose their 11th standard and undergraduate stream because of the name and popularity. This may not create interest for them and lead to boredom.

So what we say is that having an open discussion with the counselors will bring better knowledge about the course and its scope.

For example: Amir is a 12th-standard student and waiting for his examination results. Meanwhile, he plans to complete any course like computer basics in general. He has many options to choose his degree. It can be either a bachelor of science, arts, engineering, or medical domain. 

If he is interested in choosing medical, only he knows the first level, the in-depth information like streams in medical such as MBBS, BDS, MD, BAMS, MCh, etc, he doesn’t have an idea. If he chooses engineering, it also has multiple streams like computer science, electrical, electronics, civil, and mechanical engineering.

It is not sure that every individual is aware of the different courses and their benefits. But the counselor will educate him with these particulars and he can now choose the degree as per his interest.

Parental Influence and Expectations

In many Indian families, the students are influenced by their parents and friends regarding the future. Irrespective of their interest, the parents stimulate them to choose the courses for their purposes. It can be like medicine to become a doctor, engineering to become an engineer, and government courses to become a government employee for pride.

If the students are supposed to fulfill their parent’s desire, they go with their choice and will cross the days with less interest if they don’t like it. The students should not go blindly with their parent’s preferences without realizing his/her goals and interests.
For example, if you are an undergraduate holder and passionate about working in the IT sector but your parents are inducing you to go with government jobs, you might agree to it and start working on a government job, you could find that it is boring and dissatisfies you at a certain point.

The academic counselor acts as a mediator between the students and parents during a discussion. The counselor will listen to the student and parent’s perspectives and explain the features of the course/job, pros and cons, job security, financial stability, success rate, and pride aligned with the specific careers by balancing and convincing both of them.

This satisfies the students and parents and encourages students to choose their interested courses happily.

Benefits of Career Counseling

1. Career counseling aids in identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Knowing the opportunities and their impact on your life can increase your potential strength.

2. Counseling offers tools like aptitude tests, personal tests, and interest inventories to enhance your analytical knowledge.

3. Counselors help to set your short-term and long-term goals. This will motivate you to focus on the goal and reach the desired heights.

4. They motivate you to attend subject courses, workshops, and internships which give exposure to the respective areas.

5. Counselors can act as a bridge between the parents and you to decide the courses on your own.

6. They reduce stress and anxiety when you are overwhelmed with multiple choices.

7. Counselor will make you to adapt the changes in technology and market trends.

How To Get Students Counseling?

If you need counseling, can connect with the person virtually or literally. There are many career counseling counselors available in India, and you can select the right person who meets your requirements. 
School and college students can enquire about the details from the staff or any personal agencies.

You can visit the online portals for your section and collect guidance from them.

The Indian governments also provide some services like the National Career Service (NCS) portal for students to get counseling on their careers.

Some NGOs conduct programs like Pratham and Magic Bus to help students from rural areas attain counseling.

In India, there are several online tools to self-assess individual capability and get advice from counselors. The popular tools are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Holland Code Career Test, and StrengthsFinder.

You can attend the webinars and workshops to add an extra skill to your career.

Hope this article will benefit you in knowing the importance of counseling for the students and other individuals. If you are a student and need a counselor’s advice, you can gain ideas from them by booking an appointment. Based on your interest, you can find your counselor and discuss with him about your thoughts and desires. He/She will help you with the proper solution to navigate yourself in the current 2024.