IN the last few weeks I heard two young guns cussing (vociferously) for being coerced into pursuing a BCom degree at a young, impressionable age.
They mean no offense to the discipline but they question the role it played in shaping their careers (which is according to them is zilch). Today, one boy is a scholar in Political Science, the other a yoga instructor who comes home to train you.
Those five formative years (includes Class 11 and 12) of academic drudgery seem to have inspired infinite boredom in two bright, young minds. In hindsight, they wished they were more empowered in the decision-making; the yoga instructor wished he pursued a BSc in Yogic Science as this is his calling in life, and the political science scholar wishes he had pursued a Bachelor in Arts and not commerce and economics.
But at the time, they could not withstand family pressure, despite having good parents who want the best for their kids. But parents can be ill-informed and clichéd in their beliefs, which sediment over time due to lack of information on future job prospects.
For instance, my merchandiser friend who now works for a retail conglomerate (of somewhat vulgarly large proportions), is a glowing example of several wasted years on a generic degree. Today, one element of her job is to interact with craftspeople from across the country and the world (she is constantly raving about the boys and girls in the Philippines who are muchos creative!). She picks and chooses odds and ends, which she hopes will add some character to her consumer’s home. She loves this aspect of her job, immensely and when she meets the craftspeople, she is like a kid in a candy store, mesmerised by their creativity. But getting to the candy store proved to be an arduous journey.
After Class 12 she wanted to pursue a design programme at NIFT. Hailing from a family that rates literacy very high on their life agenda, her papa insisted she complete graduation (BCom) and then see if she still wanted to pursue NIFT.
She completed three years, and once again asked her papa about NIFT, and this time he insisted on an MCom degree, and the girl agreed. Two years down the line, again she asked about NIFT, and this time he had no choice but to agree since the girl refused to find a job. She gave the test and submitted her portfolio, a series of sketches all featuring solitary figures (a lone tree, a lone girl with sadness in her eyes and other such solitary objects). And then she made it, opting for a non-fashion design programme (textile perhaps).
She began life at NIFT, with classmates who were at least five years younger than her. It was an odd situation, but in a way a dream come true after five years of a forgettable academic experience.
The long and short of the matter is: should children be forced to pursue generic graduate degrees without mapping them to future job/ career prospects, marrying them with interest and aptitude? If not, then who will do the mapping, and at what age should both parents and children be exposed to multiple career paths that are more specific and less generic in nature?
During Class 11 and 12, we were pretty clueless as to what was on offer besides medicine, engineering and microbiology. I once contemplated becoming a nun, since I lived in a hostel run by them, and the strict regimen tends to sometimes mess with you head for a few weeks! Anyways, I opted for a BSc in Microbiology for a few weeks and an epiphany later, realised that it would be of absolutely no consequence to my life. So, I switched to a BSc in Physics but now work in editorial. During the course of the programme, I joined the Communications Club, mostly attended by Arts students, and the Prof who kicked it off made more than a dent in my impressionable young mind. The seeds of my future career were sown right then. I knew I wanted to be in the media, with a focus on education and careers. I suppose the drabness of my own college years, spurred me on. After all physics is an intriguing subject made excruciatingly dull by professors whose teaching methodology, not to mention worldview, bordered on the redundant.
On a different note, I joined Instituto Hispania to learn Espanol, a language that is music to my ears since I am inclined towards sangria, Gaudi, Dali and little coastal towns such as Torre Vieja (old tower) where if you speak good English, people mistake you for being from England (though I do detest bull fights from the bottom of my soul)! I was so looking forward to being a student once again, and embracing the joys of learning. But the institute managed to squish the sensuality and passion out of this lovely language, and reduce it to a series of theory lessons. Sigh.
As a nation, we seem to love to squeeze out all the joy of learning, don’t we? And our mantra seems to be” let’s take everything interesting and make it dull as ditchwater”.
So on the one hand you have, teaching methodologies that discourage curiosity and interactivity, encourage learning by rote. On the other, you have generic degrees pursued by million of students in the country. And what do we have at the end of it? Chronically unemployable kids. You need only speak to employers, to understand the disdain with which they approach recruitment.
Remember I am not talking about the best institutions in the country (though some of them might also be highly suspect) but the thousands of institutes churning out an assembly-line production of generic graduates with some knowledge but little skills, every year across the country. One cannot merely blame parents for this odd state of affairs. The current system is just not rising to the occasion in terms of either meeting the demands of the job market or doing justice to a student’s aspirations.
