What do you do when your heart wants a career which is rather risky and uncertain, and your consciousness is deliberately influenced by those successful around you pursuing jobs which in the maximum of all probabilities, they do not take pleasure in? You discuss it with the elders around you, your mentors, teachers, parents and if all fails, peers. But does that solve the problem of being confused about your career? Mostly, not. So, what do we do to make an actual decision and go along with it?

The predicament is layered and we need layered and divided steps to deal with the same. Firstly, the need for bridging the gap in communication between children and their parents is immaculate and that brings into the scenario the role of a career guidance counselor and one on one mentorship. Furthermore, parents need to stop expecting their children to pursue or fulfill their unfulfilled dreams and that they can have individual expectations from themselves.

In response, children need to understand that their parents were raised at a different time and that they may not understand the risks and rewards of the future. Once this is done, both parties need to craft their ways around expectations and requirements and then focus on devising ways to achieve the same goals.

Second, parents, teachers, coaching classes, online coaching classes and mentors, through one on one mentorship, need to understand the need for embracing creative channels that children build for themselves (arts, sports, films, music, or anything else). The need for these forms of artistic expression can be well understood when a psychological analysis of a student’s mind is being conducted.

These are the avenues students make use of to rid themselves of stress and pressure of academic performance. Some students make use of physically exhaustive channels like sports and training, while others use more mentally calming channels like meditation, music, painting, etc. This can give us a massive insight into a student’s mind.

Students are convinced into taking a career path because it is usually safer and has more chances of success. The success rate of a particular career determines the number of students pursuing it. The rewards are celebrated in accordance with the conventional understanding of success in society.

Another conventional sheep system is the approach towards STEM subjects. People believe that these subjects are safer as most career opportunities originate from these fields. Science, technology, math, and economics may be the most in-demand subjects but not every student has a liking towards these subjects. This needs to be understood by almost every stakeholder of the education system whether in schools, online coaching classes or other coaching classes.

Students should not have to feel responsible for fulfilling what their parents could not achieve in their lives. Sometimes we see that parents are often pushing their desires and unfulfilled dreams onto their children and the way that narrative has been set up, children feel almost obligated without a choice to follow the path created by their parents. This builds unnecessary pressure and prevents students from exhausting their true potentials to find out what they’re actually good at.

The dilemma of parents is often unaccounted for. Many times, parents want to be supportive of their child’s dream and their passion for a certain form of art, but they are not able to help their child pursue the same due to lack of infrastructure for the same. Even with the presence of the best learning apps for students and best parent apps, the solution to such problems has not yet been found.

As a society, we have been so focused on the academic aspect of education that we have completely underestimated the importance of the holistic development of our children. For being so proactive about life choices and propagators of rights and freedoms for expression of individuality, we are severely lacking in the field of education.

We need to build a collaborative career guidance system, inclusive of best learning apps for students, best parent apps, a guided education system and interactive online coaching classes, wherein we look at all options as allies and not rivals and only then can our students be truly and genuinely happy. Considering financial needs is extremely important but it does not have to come at the cost of emotional and mental well-being.