Sunday, August 02, 2009

Which students are using computer?

Tata Consultancy Service recently announced a survey results of students ranging from 12 to 18 age, living in metros and mini metros, of about 14000 students. The findings can be seen on the website of the company.

Some of the findings are notable. 63% of urban students spend over an hour online daily, which is quite a significant number. Most of them access internet at home as 62% have a personal computer at home. Usage of computers is therefore quite significant in metros and mini metros.

The more interesting part for us is about the choice of careers of these children. IT and engineering remain overwhelming popular career choices, perhaps because it is talked about the most. With the proliferation of Engineering colleges, especially private colleges, this should not be a surprising choice. More importantly, engineering offers many options and is not a niche stream like say 'medical'.

However, an unexpected choice has been the foreign destinations for higher studies. This seems to have become increasingly popular. This is surprising because the best graduation is perhaps offered in India while the best post-graduation courses are in other countries. We should perhaps find out which students are really going out and why. My guess is that these students who wish to go at 'graduate' levels are the ones who do 'education' to have a degree against their name. It would be interesting to find the list of serious 'careerists'. I know of a friend whose child went to US because she wanted to graduate in a rare subject like mathematics. Choices of basic sciences like physics and chemistry still make it very attractive choice to go to western universities.

I must however say that i was most enthused to learn that some other careers are coming in the forefront. Careers such as Media & Entertainment, Travel and Tourism are emerging career options. There are lot others which have not gained public visibility such as careers in ecology. The rate of adopting these careers is slow because most of them are not aware of these options. And this is where internet can really play a big role. If students ( and their parents) learn to use internet creatively, they could find many more career options for their children.