Passion, money or stability: What decides your career?

If you pick a career you love, you won't have to work a day in your life.

Now that the board examination results are out, youngsters would soon venture into exploring different choices that will eventually determine their career pathway.

It is also that time of the year where one gets to hear a lot of career advice for your child from every direction.

While any guidance is good, you need to make sure it does not get the best of you or your child. To be cautious, we have listed out certain myths regarding career choices and facts that bust these myths.

Here are five myths associated with career choices in India and their real facts:

Myth 1: Engineering and medicine are the only stable careers

Fact: According to the All India Council for Technical Education, every year out of eight lakh engineers graduating from technical institutions across the country, more than 60 per cent stay unemployed.

Though medical students do fairly better given the nature of the job, the number of seats in medical colleges is so limited that it is extremely difficult for students to get admission.
So yes, engineering and medicine are good career options, they are not the only stable ones.

The growth of the economy has given rise to many new age careers that are not only exciting but also stable. Not all students have to end up being an engineer or a doctor.

Myth 2: A job that earns you good money is the best job

Fact: As parents, we would love to see our child well settled and happy in life. However, we forget, happiness is not all about money.

Your child could be driven towards something else. Maybe he/she likes to serve the country, do something for the underprivileged, or travel the world.

Figure out what drives your child and find out a career that matches their ambition. The rest will fall in place.

Myth 3: Your hobby can never be your profession

Fact: The thought that you cannot pursue a hobby as a full time career is out-dated.

People have successfully carved out careers out of their hobby, passion, interest and aptitude. Let us say your child loves to draw and sketch.

There are multiple career options that he/she can explore based on this interest. Some of them are fashion designing, UI/UX designing, illustrator, architect and so on.

Therefore, your child can build a stable career with his/her interest, passion and aptitude as a foundation.

Myth 4: Humanities are only for students with low grades

Fact: Earlier, the default stream choice for students who scored well in their Class 10th board exams was science.

Students who had opted for Humanities were thought to be as not-so good academically. However, this is changing.

Today, academically inclined students are also opting for humanities because they are interested in it and they know they can build successful careers around it.

Myth 5: Hard work is the only way to be successful in your career

Fact: Though this advice is mostly true, today you need a lot more smart work than hard work and by smart work we mean, proper planning at the right time.

Let us say your child has figured out his/her interest, passion and aptitude by Class 10th and based on these he/she has zeroed in on a career.

With this career as a goal, he/she needs to list down the suitable stream in Class 12, the electives, the colleges that he/she needs to apply, the entrance exams, etc.

Then it can be said that your career blueprint is ready. That is smart work. Remainder is putting in some hard work to bring that blueprint into action.

Smart work coupled with hard work is the recipe to a successful career.

Lead image -- a still from Wake Up Sid -- used for representational purposes only.

The write-up is contributed by Lodestar, a Bengaluru based ed-tech start-up that guides students in making informed career choices.