By Asim Haleem
In Pakistan, the concept of career counseling is not prioritized. Parents spoon-feed their children that they can be a doctor or an engineer. So, if you are a girl, you must become a doctor or if you are a boy, you must become an engineer. Students in Pakistan never ponder that many professions and fields of study exist. All they do is follow whatever is considered better by their parents or society. In the end, the degree that a student completes has nothing to do with his/her career. We grow up with the concept that whatever we study will determine what we earn based on the ‘scope’ of that field. With the inclusion of what our GPA is rather than focusing on where our skills take us. Unfortunately, it ends up resulting in many adults hating what they do and not enjoying the learning process of their university life.
Many people are stuck in this limbo of what is best for their lives. Some do get out of this by creating something worth it. They do their startups and become entrepreneurs. As soon as their business kicks up, they leave their miserable jobs and live a life based on their terms. Unfortunately, many people continue doing whatever they hate as they are not able to create
something for themselves due to family responsibilities, low income, etc. In Pakistan, we mostly see engineers and doctors graduating in the highest number every year. It also creates unemployment due to the surplus of such professions. The reason is that many fathers in Pakistan want their sons to be engineers because the fathers couldn’t grab an opportunity to be an engineer in their lives. The same goes for many mothers wanting their daughters to be doctors. In this way, around 70 percent of medical college admissions happen every year, consisting of female students. Almost 50 percent of them do not practice their profession after graduation because they get married and start a family. Many of our graduated students of engineering that had no interest in it end up working at banks and giving tuition. They contribute nothing to any departments where engineers are required with their innovative ideas.
In the last decade, we have seen the rise of YouTubers, vloggers, and content creators in Pakistan. At first, it was told as something you just do for fun but now, we have seen the rise of freelancing in Pakistan connected through many networks online, with people initiating to realize and accept that being a YouTuber can also be a profession as many people and influencer are succeeding. People are realizing that YouTubers and freelancers are the ones that emerge from our society.
Pakistan can produce many experts in all the fields around the world. We know the talent is already here but it’s the guidance and counseling that has been missing. The educational institutions are working for their benefit rather than grooming and counseling their students into alumni that bring change and utilize their potential.
The normality of career counseling and wanting to do what your heart tells you is essential for the growth of Pakistan. Our upcoming generation needs to investigate its strengths and weaknesses considering academic life and "Career counseling" is the most important weapon required to do so.
“The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
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