As Kids Come To College!

 Rameshwar Baral  

Come the month of Shravan, a fresh spirit and excitement also come into higher education. This is the time when students complete their higher secondary level of education, known as the Plus Two level. With the end of plus two education,  the long, schooling years also come to their end. A new phase for students begins as they start college education.

To begin with, students look into and aspire to be a part of the new academic environment. Here they aren't alone; parents stand ready with cash and go-ahead nods. 

Colleges too are in a waiting mode for diligent students. They motivate and overhaul themselves afresh. Colleges prepare best furthering their prospect links over physical and academic tools for a more convincing look. 

Just recently, the colleges refurbished, updated and posted their profile on their website that talks of efficient teaching faculty, management and facilities like conference rooms, well-stocked libraries, practical labs, and seminar halls with cameras, speakers, and so on. In turn, kids surf the sites or are acknowledged by word of mouth and consult friends and seniors. 

They're alert why they mustn't be late for choosing a college and face the entrance test. The truth is they're proactive to judge and evaluate their new college, which has to have a reasonable fee structure, scholarship provisions, an uncluttered location, a hygienic cafeteria and a yearly schedule for excursions, and field 

visits which stand for curricular and extracurricular events.  Aside from this awareness, they're equally embarrassed too. Choosing a college and stream's a case of extra concern; otherwise it'd be a sheer waste of time and money. 

They'd heard the story of their senior who'd joined biology when he had a liking for economics. As he couldn't cope with biology for three semesters, his parents also felt sorry. Thank god, it’s never too late. 

Freedom To Choose

Pushing one or being pushed to the stream of disliking is being negative. It'd eat up their heads and time. Nor are parents the sole architects of kids' future! If biology's for a future doctor, there are many more, not less profound streams too – you have the choice! Why then push oneself or be pushed for a disliked stream? If parents pushed, you'd call it a case of intimate vice! But then the kid suffers their time and the parents sink their hard-earned money! It's where we put higher education uphill and risky. 

Doctor or engineer, shouldn't we ever look beyond! So it's wise to listen to the kid if they argue silently and ask for, '… but freedom first, no shackles!' It is better for the kid to decide to choose or to choose to decide. Since they're already too big teens, they'd better use their innovative skills. 

Freedom to choose is the point here since aptitude is the competency tested positive. So the main parental role describes funding, environment, vision, and no intervention, as regards kids' higher education. 

The nation's now multiple disciplines under its universities and institutes an obligation to education planning, and all this is for its human resources. It implies the right education to the right student. Since education's directed towards the future, choice and aptitude are not stretchy, nor a random choice or push; ultimate is the kid's taste and preference. 

Practice of Counselling

Pre-admission counselling explores innate skills and is a very popular approach now. Colleges have counselling cells to help a newcomer connect, define and determine their aptitude, and are variously effective. As stated otherwise, it's competency about student attitude. This mantra removes career crises and also resolves a newcomer's admission puzzles in the field of education.    

Counselling fairly adjudges a student's liberty. It focuses vehemently on addressing cases of social anxiety disorder. If it's aptitude, it's an odd tweak of conscience that kids themselves dig out and admit fearlessly. B is their being and becoming, and C is confidence, continuity and charisma. ABC on the whole is an attitude to their future; it boosts and boots them up. So attitude follows letters from a to z – it's attested and attributive, being and becoming, choose and chase, determine and drive, electrified to excel, flying to fame, geared up growing, harped on highbrows, inductive and imposing, justified to jump off, prevailing and persuasive. 

The word attitude itself carries a weight of the full 100 marks. To illustrate this, take A-Z letters in continued figures that go into 1-26. Then do the count - (attitude) total letters come to 100. So attitude synthesises hundred-upon-hundred in the exams paper value – the equivalent of life force – higher than an altitude of magnitude in the career latitude. 

Feasibility and Practice:  

Confusion arises here: a kid's a kid in a soft cheesy brain! They can't always decide by themselves. How can all of them come to a decision? Career counselling as such is why we need here precisely that come into categories, which are – 1) School leaving level, 2) Alumnus level, 3) College admission level, 4) Expertise level (banks, financial institutions, big houses, industrial houses, government agencies, etc. come into this category), 5) Academic level (exhibitions frequently as at Bhrikuti Mandap), and so on. So far as practicable, these give an insight (therapy) into wavering brains!  Last but not the least, counselling requires a host of educationists, psychologists and experts. 

(Baral is a retired lecturer of English)