Every time I feel I have heard it all, my ears are subjected to an outrageous statement. Or at least what I think is outrageous. The scary part is that there is an actual thought process behind such a statement.
Last week, a few professionals including me were invited to talk about their respective careers to a bunch of class 10 kids by a Mumbai school. After we finished our speeches at the event, we were ushered in to different classrooms so that interested students could pose their queries to us individually.
A bubbly student, interested in writing (or so he claimed) asked me whether it would be advisable to be a tech columnist (since he loved technology, no points for guessing that), or a regular journalist. When I offered details of the job, along with pros and cons of both, and told him that columnists need to prove their specialty, he just waved his hand saying that it would be a 'side thing' for him, indicating that his main profession would be engineering. So far so good.
His parting shot was the shocker. "So, let' say I finish my engineering in three to five years after 12th..." at which point I interjected and told him that the bachelor's programme was of four years duration and the master's another two.
"Okay, so six years. Don't you think that it's a little to late?" Whoa! What? A little too late for what?
"To start my career?"
Utterly flabbergasted, I was glad that I fumbled only inwardly to find my words. On he outside I seemed calm and in deep thought. I really want to believe that. This child is smart, intelligent, does well at school and has not missed a single year of academics... is there a way where he can really get there earlier than that? I explained to him, patiently and in detail that he could not do it faster than that if he chose a career via academics. I'm not sure he was convinced.
My shock was shared by a doctor, who had also addressed the students earlier. The doctor had a student claiming that it was futile for her (the student) to pursue an MBBS since she wanted to become a skin specialist. She wanted to know if there was a 'shortcut' to the specialisation in any institute throughout the country.
I get that these are children who are ill informed, and need to be handled with care and patience. But isn't this the generation with information at their fingertips? So what's making them think towards such shortcuts? The glamour of success and money? Perhaps. It does have something, however, to do with the rat race. Fortunately, we could try to reason with these two students rationally. The unfortunate part is that we have no clue why increasingly, more and more students of this generation are thinking like that. There, we have no answers. Only questions.
Last week, a few professionals including me were invited to talk about their respective careers to a bunch of class 10 kids by a Mumbai school. After we finished our speeches at the event, we were ushered in to different classrooms so that interested students could pose their queries to us individually.
A bubbly student, interested in writing (or so he claimed) asked me whether it would be advisable to be a tech columnist (since he loved technology, no points for guessing that), or a regular journalist. When I offered details of the job, along with pros and cons of both, and told him that columnists need to prove their specialty, he just waved his hand saying that it would be a 'side thing' for him, indicating that his main profession would be engineering. So far so good.
His parting shot was the shocker. "So, let' say I finish my engineering in three to five years after 12th..." at which point I interjected and told him that the bachelor's programme was of four years duration and the master's another two.
"Okay, so six years. Don't you think that it's a little to late?" Whoa! What? A little too late for what?
"To start my career?"
Utterly flabbergasted, I was glad that I fumbled only inwardly to find my words. On he outside I seemed calm and in deep thought. I really want to believe that. This child is smart, intelligent, does well at school and has not missed a single year of academics... is there a way where he can really get there earlier than that? I explained to him, patiently and in detail that he could not do it faster than that if he chose a career via academics. I'm not sure he was convinced.
My shock was shared by a doctor, who had also addressed the students earlier. The doctor had a student claiming that it was futile for her (the student) to pursue an MBBS since she wanted to become a skin specialist. She wanted to know if there was a 'shortcut' to the specialisation in any institute throughout the country.
I get that these are children who are ill informed, and need to be handled with care and patience. But isn't this the generation with information at their fingertips? So what's making them think towards such shortcuts? The glamour of success and money? Perhaps. It does have something, however, to do with the rat race. Fortunately, we could try to reason with these two students rationally. The unfortunate part is that we have no clue why increasingly, more and more students of this generation are thinking like that. There, we have no answers. Only questions.
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