CAREER CHOOSING: THE DILEMMA OF A YOUNG AVERAGE AFRICAN STUDENT

Making a career choice has never been an easy task for a growing child which has no or little experience. Most parents believe in the ideology of "whoever finance the project, makes the decision" when it comes to career choosing of their wards and as a result of this, most make wrong decisions for their wards without considering major factors that influence career-choicing.

Schools on the other hand has failed in helping the situation by not guiding the students in choosing their career, most schools believe it is left to the home and the child to decide.

Most children grow up hearing their parents call them doctor or saying to their hearing that they must be a medical doctor without considering the child's brain power, intelligent quotient and interest, and the child grow up believing the only profession he can do in life to succeed is medical doctor.

 The evidence is there, 70% of science students applicants in most university put in for medicine and surgery, Do they all have passion for medicine? No!  Why the high percentage? Parental influence.

Make no mistake, medicine is a noble profession with surely good chance of job opportunity and security after college but there are too much misfits and medically passionless people towing the path which account for high number of suicide cases among medical students.

Career-choicing in Nigeria is something imminent for a basic 9 student to choose between science, technology, humanities and business studies. Most students find it difficult and confusing which path to follow as a result of lack of orientation and information on what each department entails and the professions under each department.

The following are the major factors  to consider before choosing a department; 

1. Student capability 
2. Interest/ passion/ talent
3. Society need/ societal relevance
4. Financial condition 
5. Time

The afore-listed conditions are to be rigorously considered before choosing a department, for example a student that is very poor in maths has no business in science, someone that hates reading stories and write-ups has no business in humanity, someone that is average in maths and English language is good for business studies, someone that is poor in all will be fair in one, let him go to the one that correlates with the one he's fair at while someone that is poor in all and fair in none should go for vocational training, the essence of this is to bring the best out of every individual and have as many as possible Highflyers among the populace. 

Thank you for reading.