Making a “Professional Choice” about Professions
In ancient India, we were
born into professions. If you were born in a family of carpenters, you would
also in all probability be trained to be one, same with professions like
cobblers, farmers, priests, masons, state rulers / kings and many others. Is
there value in this approach to getting into a profession? The flip side of this
approach has been debated – the merits & demerits of inheriting a career
both for the individual and the society. With mankind constantly organizing them
differently – their needs, the sociological topography have become drivers for
their profession.
On the ancient approach to
professions, I think there is merit in that process – simply because it is
driven by knowledge. The skills, richness of past experience being easily
accessible to all in the family, the skills, output would flourish more. For
example, a musician who’s house resonates with music each day is surely likely
to influence the child / member of that family with the knowledge being more
easily accessible and available, so also with a politician, administrator, army
personnel. Factors on aptitude, capability, interest & past experiences in
that profession have more recently played an important role in eventually crafting
one’s career. However, on the point of knowledge acquisition, there is a
starter’s advantage. The base of the profession is knowledge which is central
to the family / community. The focus was on excellence – different trades /
skills flourished, expertise further honed. Exclusivity of knowledge is what a
lot of institutions have challenged when they standardize education and make it
more accessible to a larger community.
India is poised to gain from
both schools of thought – only if we do not reject the old while accepting the
new.
To me the deeper question is
what should be the focus while choosing how to spend time whilst on this planet
– to most of us in urban centres it is about being gainfully employed.
To me this is as much a
philosophical question as much as a live human resource question in
organizations.
Let us continue our journey
on choice of professions.
Later in the 1940’s till the 1960’s,
with the growth of cities and industrial hubs, jobs were linked to education.
Education level was an indication of intelligence. A Masters degree in
literature was as valuable as a Masters in Mathematics. Degrees in both
disciplines were perceived as equally intelligent acquisitions. Social
sciences, physical sciences were taught, appreciated and present in equal
measure. Our grandparents who had a B.A degree in Maths or Economics were well
respected for their qualification. Besides the degree, it also showcased their
ability to focus on a subject, work hard and clear those exams then. (without
coaching classes or model papers....the sheer power of reading multiple
textbooks and spending time in libraries made them strong and also achievers in
their era). An under-graduate convocation ceremony B.A, B.Sc would be
celebrated in their hearts (without ostentation) and welcomed at home and in
the neighbourhood with warmth and good regard for the degree earned.
Then, came the 1980’s where an
undergraduate degree was no embellishment on your visiting card. The number of
graduates rose, the number of jobs probably did not keep pace. You had the
media (especially films) on how young educated youth did not get employment and
took to wrong ways. Debates on education system being irrelevant to the job
market became louder and prominent.
However, that was another inflection
point – a shift from education for education’s sake to education for job / industry’s
sake However, each time the society re-aligned skills to the ‘job market”, it
is important to note that it fooled itself when it blamed the knowledge it
acquired. For example, a skill called “typing” in urban centres and in
corporates made one more valuable. Supplementing a graduate degree with a
typing skill or some similar skill made it easier to find the job. You find a
starker reflection of this later in the 1990’s as well – the countless computer
courses equipping oneself for a job. This is possibly one point of inflection where
the knowledge acquired got re-aligned to the job market with an absolutely
different tool – totally at a tangent with the core degree or knowledge
acquired. Where my core degree could be in another field but one upskilled
oneself to gain employment – Degree in Chemical engg but an IT professional.
And mass tendency was to move towards “successful”
industries.
Creating Skill gaps in the society: Mass inference
Later
in the 1990’s – it was the IT revolution which took its toll on most other
disciplines. A job in IT meant being not merely a graduate but an engineering
graduate. IT also meant great working environment, opportunity to earn more,
opportunity to live in places across the globe (which had then and still have
much higher standards of living). Therefore, somewhere the mass inference was
good intelligence = being an engineer = getting a job in IT = having arrived in
life, therefore it is a good knowledge to acquire. We rationalize when we see
success – I call it success rationalisation. In the process, some also found
their true love in IT and some more out of societal compulsions / situations.
What
it did to other disciplines in those two decades is something we will look at
in another write up since the present focus is on how we choose our profession.
Since, skills can be acquired, increasingly the trend is to make choices in
higher education based on future outcomes it begets – more so in terms of
extent and probability of monetary gains.
From
family inheritance of an occupation, to skill based education and societal
inheritance (peer pressure), the third variable in our career decision (and the
first for many now) is the return on investment. When we see education for its
return on investments – the learning / seeking knowledge goals is more likely
than not to be diluted. The electives are chosen on what will appeal most in
the job market (mind plays its tricks on you it justifies that you are gaining
knowledge – but the purpose is to justify returns).
With
the IT boom hijacking most engineering colleges, did anyone pause to think what
happened to the other streams – civil, marine, instrumental. (This has wider
implications, when the country needs these skills, a decade or two later).
I
see this decade long boom period for specific skill sets as small disrupters
for knowledge seekers, a degree / subject becomes a favourite because you see
big-gains in the job market. There is no problem in being the country’s favourite
discipline as long it does not become the only connotation of success in that
decade.
In
this phase, the majority start equating money with intelligence – which is the
biggest misgiving a professional can ever have. Profession is about knowledge.
Not all knowledge lends itself to high pay. Knowledge lends itself to being at
the core of the subject, understanding its nuances and dancing with its
applications /observations. Money is only an incidental outcome, a bi-product
depending on level of industrial activity and in no way should it be allowed to
assess the worth of any stream of work at its absolute core level.
Today,
as I even write this, choice of education / profession is largely determined by
seeing outcomes which others have had – for example, being an engineer still pays
off, doing an MBA pays off even better. If the information of who, which
field, which job / institute earned the most was not available to all of us, we
would make more well informed decisions.
The
MBA course always existed – today it is not just about knowledge, it reflects
your education status, your visibility as a professional, probability of higher
paying jobs, faster growth etc.
If
for a moment, we could hide the career paths & the compensation earned by
your Engineer / MBA cousins and neighbours, would you have still chosen the
path simply looking at their jobs just as a child says he loves choclates or
would like to be a teacher! It is only as interesting if not less interesting, than
the curator’s job in the museum, the social worker’s job in an NGO, the teacher’s
job in a school. When new age students say they are pursuing a professional
course for passion – my only response to them is teaching needs a lot of
passion too! Then why not become a teacher. All I seek is love for one’s
subject – only then can we allow knowledge to flourish seamlessly.
Few
courses and professions which do not have a stream of applicants are more likely
to have the “passionate few” who do it for the love of the subject / work
without allowing monetary considerations interfere with their career decisions.
Journalism, politics, teaching, sports, music, counseling, geologists, marine
divers, coast guards are some instances of unique professions which always have
a call beyond one’s job brief!
The
list of Padma awardees is one to reckon with – it was not derived from the most
sought after course across nations by top percentile students….the list
comprised of artistes, sportsmen, people who influenced society (no designation
can describe such jobs) – most of them in pursuits which nobody would have been
able to pursue with a calculation of ROI on education costs. They have their
soul in congruence with their knowledge..hence they perform naturally.
As
increasing number of people aspiring for higher education, we fool ourselves – we
think we are getting knowledge but we meander into making ourselves employable
in a rather unpredictable world. If we stick to gaining knowledge, chances of
survival in an unpredictable world is even more.
We
also fool ourselves by saying that today there is greater choice – are we not
limiting ourselves to certain degrees? Have we changed the basis of our choice.
The determinants of choice limit our choices. The ROI comes in the way of truly
healthy choice. Healthy choice is a luxury for few with high risk appetite or
passion.
Question
for Reflection for young in India would be – if all your basic needs were
provided for, which education / knowledge would you have really chosen?”
Find
your knowledge and live for the love of Knowledge!
Author
Ms.
Kanchana Manyam
