CareerDirect is an application that guides mostly secondary school students on the career path to choose.
Individuals as well as society desire high quality of life and elevated social status. Whether an individual will enjoy a high quality of life and attain high status in society depends on the choices s/he makes at different stages of his or her life especially from the age of awareness (5 years). These choices will shape the future of the individual in terms of societal status and quality of life.
One of such choices or decisions is the career choice decision which is often made in secondary school.
A lot of factors influence the choice a child makes. Chief among these factors are
- Parental desire
- Peer influence
- Societal influence
- Social media influence
Many parents want to satisfy their desires through their children. Some of the parents who wanted to study medicine for instance and could not, would insist that at least one of their children achieves that aim for them irrespective of the desires and or inclinations of the children.
Some other parents want to have their children graduate from the so-called notable professional courses such as medicine, pharmacy, nursing, engineering, radiography etc so that they can brag about having all of them. Although these kinds of decisions by parents are often made out of love and their desire to see their children get a job and stabilize financially without wasting time on graduation, it does not take into account the capabilities of the child in question.
Peer influence works together with societal influence. Students tend to gravitate towards courses that are revered by the society. It gives the student some kind of respect and status among his or her peers. Oh, “he is a medical student”, “he is a pharmacy student”, “s/he is studying nursing” etc. This kind of expression elicits some superiority feeling among students.
If the salary of a certain kind of professional begins to trend in social media because it is huge, a lot of students get attracted to it.
The outcome of these influenced decisions is that some students get frustrated either during their studies, abandon the course for another degree after graduation or become bad professionals.
For instance, a certain son of a professor at Nsukka graduated with 7 A1s from secondary school and the father cajoled him into studying medicine. Of course, due to hard work, he got admitted and even passed the second MBBS with a distinction at UNN but he was not enjoying the course. He was able to tell his father he was done having proved to him that he wasn’t afraid of studying medicine. He changed to Physics which was his inclination and the rest is history.
These career choice influences result in frustrations in school following poor performances and failures. Some students even take their lives or resort to hard drugs to cope.
When they manage the graduates, they make the worst of professionals. Both their colleagues and clients pay for the choices they make due to external influence.
The stories of charge and bail lawyers who could hardly make out a living abound in Nigeria. A certain staff of one university in the South East who graduated as a lawyer is currently doing a master’s degree in an area that has nothing to do with law. She is not prepared to apply the knowledge to her law practice. No, she is one of those who became a law professional due to external influence.
Again, a certain medical doctor at one of NAUTH’s outposts would complain and tell anyone who wanted to hear that she was just being a doctor for her father. Her attitude was always obnoxious and uncaring to patients who often requested a change of doctor. Stories abound.
“Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” -Mark Twain/Confucius
At Nnamdi Azikiwe University here, before the advent of the admission portal, a certain student was “admitted” to the pharmacy by a staff who was paid by her father to smuggle her into the pharmacy list. She got through to her second year and failed. Then her father got a fake UNIPORT second class upper degree statement of result with which she got admitted to the second year again through direct entry.
This was actually what gave her out because the results, the dates and senate approvals were inconsistent. It was when the admission unit was asked to explain how she was admitted after failing out that they revealed that her admission was already under investigation for an irregular registration number. When she was queried, she revealed that her father wanted her to study Pharmacy at all costs and was ready to splash the money. I know some teacher who was approached with an open cheque to let her be.
When students make career choices based on their inclinations, they progress and become the best and prosper in their field of endeavour. This reveals the geniuses in kids. Albert Einstein was credited as the author of this saying
‘Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid’
In other words, put a child in a course that s/he has minimal inclination to, s/he will come out as stupid. That destroys lives, and breeds hooligans, and thugs that destroy society.
CareerDirect is an application that is scientifically developed using career guidance tools and models that will help a student decide what course is most suitable for him or her following his or her answers to proven guidance questions.
With this app, a student will narrow down the career path that is most suitable for him/her to eliminate the confusion that students face in SS1/SS2 when choosing subjects.
It also eliminates the pressure the teachers go through to direct students on the subjects that lead to the best career path.
In fact, it is a useful tool for all Guidance and counselling masters in secondary school as well as the career units in the universities.
Students should use the questions as many times as they can for optimal effect. To visit the app, click here.