Alternate Careers for Creative Satisfaction
Nidhi Prasad
The one question that you face soon after you start your school is 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' You would invariably end up saying Doctor, Techie, and Pilot just to end speculation there. But the misery doesn't end there. The question continues to haunt you even after you have chosen your stream of study in college. While some convert their choice of subject into serious career options, there are many others who completely deviate from their academics choosing an altogether new path.
Now that the results are out many students have passed their CBSE and ICSE Board examinations with flying colors and are now rejoicing, there however are those who have not scored as per their expectations, is it time for them to descend into gloom? Well the answer is an emphatic "NO"
Marks don't decide your career. It's true that basic education is important, it helps people shape their lives and choose the right paths but education is not the only pre-requisite to walk on the road of success. Higher education is the only option to become something is a myth that most people don't seem to understand. There is constant pressure on students to score high grades, pick difficult options for careers, and appear for the toughest exams.
Choosing a career however is no easy task, most of the time a Career is made by chance, not choice. Students who do not meet high expectations of marks, grades, and percentages, have to opt for whichever subjects they have available to study and looking for career options, which are available to them. Students continue to seek traditional careers such as Engineering, Law, Medicine, etc. which have limited job opportunities. There are new career options upcoming every day, yet unemployment is high among College educated youth despite their academic qualification.
With globalization, and opening of the economy to the world every subject has numerous career choices and new specializations coming up every day.
Conventional career choices are no more in vogue. Today's youngsters are driven by passion, creative satisfaction and out-of-the-box thinking
Do you enjoy expressing your originality and like being innovative in your spare time?
With new businesses coming up and the marketplace becoming more competitive by the day, the advancement of an individual (and the company) rests on the ability to think and act creatively.
Wide array of promising careers that allow you to utilize
your creative abilities, and even get paid well!
- Design: This is a broad term, can be found in various fields from, Fashion, and to Technology and manufacturing. Whatever we see or wear has been designed by someone else.
In general, a designer need to be creative, should have an eye for detail, and be spatially inclined (individual with a high aptitude for identifying 2-D/3-D structures).
Career Opportunities in Design
There are specific fields of design one can work in, depending on one's expertise, such as Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Cartoon Design, Product Design, Apparel Design, Textile Design, Leather Design, Jewelry Design, UI/UX Design, Automobile Design, and Communication Design
Some Top Colleges for Design
National Institute of Design (Multiple Locations), Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT- Bombay, Indian Institute of Cartoonists, Bangalore, Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai, Symbiosis Institute of Design, Pune, Srishti School of Design and Technology, Bangalore, MIT Institute of Design, Pune, NIFT, Delhi, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai, Pearl Academy (Delhi, Jaipur,Mumbai)
There are some trending fields in Design that let you combine your creative flair with Technology like:
UI/UX Design:
We now have thousands of apps and websites available to make our life simpler. Each of these websites differ in the look, feel and the experience of using them, and in a more technical usage, this is called the UI and UX of a website.
UI Design, which stands for "User Interface', refers to the visual appeal of the product (app/website) which helps in enhancing the overall experience of the user. For example- When you open a website, the first thing you see is the graphics, i.e. how the menu bar looks, how the buttons are placed, etc. This is called the UI of the website.
On the other hand, UX design, which stands for User Experience design, looks into the functional aspect of the product, for example, when you like a certain product on a website, you move the product to your cart and make the payment.
Automobile Design. Do you like cars? Have you ever filled your notebooks with drawings of cars? Do you see yourself as the next great car designer? Is your car design the one which will revolutionize the automobile industry? Car design is an exciting and creative hobby, but one which rarely materializes into a job.
As India becomes an important automotive market, with sales of passenger cars crossing two million units, almost all companies are pouring in dollars into getting designers on board.
Automobile designers are involved in the whole product design life cycle, right from the look and feel of a car, to its safety and security check. The design sector of automobile engineering is rapidly growing as consumers today are constantly looking out for new designs and technology in their vehicles. Therefore, this field requires you to possess art and design skills and will provide you with a great opportunity to showcase your ability, talent and innovation.
A specialization automobile design will make you eligible to work in the research and development departments of automotive firms such as Maruti Suzuki, General Motors, Honda, Tata Motors, Cummins India, etc.
Some Top Colleges for Automobile Design
National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar, Bangalore & Ahmedabad; Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Pune; Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay & Guwahati; IIITDM Jabalpur.
Communication Design: Another upcoming field in design
Communication design is a specialized stream of design that is gaining visibility with the proliferation of the visual electronic media. It covers specialized disciplines that cater to television, catalogue illustr-ation, animation filmmaking, and video programming. Graphic design or graphic, animation film design and video programming may be considered as three basic disciplines within the purview of communication design. It touches every aspect of our lives be it watching an ad on TV, using a mobile app, or getting enticed by an exciting book cover.
Communication designers must possess a vibrant imagination, creative drawing skill, interest in the social environment, prevailing tastes, needs and customs, perseverance, self-confidence, the ability to visualize concepts and ideas, curiosity and exceptional talent.
- Advertising: Advertising is the means of informing as well as influencing the general public to buy products or services through visual or oral messages. A product or service is advertised to create awareness in the minds of potential buyers. Some of the commonly used media for advertising are T.V., radio, websites, newspapers, magazines, bill-boards, hoardings etc. Advertising is actually brand-building through effective communication and is essentially a service industry. It helps to create demand, promote marketing system and boost economic growth. Advertising professionals need to be quick on their feet, have a creative bend of mind, and be good with time management to be successful in this field.
Career Opportunities in Advertising: Depending on their area of interest, Advertising professionals perform varied roles such as client-servicing, research, copywriting, editing, and scriptwriting. As an advertising professional, you will be able to work with corporate houses, publication houses, media or advertising firms, etc.
- Photography: Photography is one of those fields that often starts as a hobby, and eventually turns into a full-fledged career. So, if you are someone who uses his/her skills and talents for a part-time hobby, then it's time you realize your talent and turn it into a full-time profession. Photography had, traditionally, been restricted to events, weddings, and movies; but in the recent years, the boom of e-commerce, advertising, mass media, and related fields has created a large demand for professional photographers. There is a huge demand of good photographers in the commercial field, such as fashion photography and food photography. There are other fields as well, such as sports photography, wildlife photography, etc., that have gained popularity. To make a career in today's digital photography world, you need to stay updated with the new techniques and equipment. There are several institutions to offer courses to train people in the required skills and techniques.
Some institutes that provide an Undergraduate diploma/ degree in photography
Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Hyderabad, National Institute of Design, Multiple Locations, National Institute of Photography, Mumbai, Delhi College of Photography, Delhi, Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, Mass Communication Centre, Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi. Symbiosis School of Photography, Pune, Raghu Rai Centre of Photography, Gurgaon.
- ANCHORING / RADIO JOCKEY: People with a beautiful and strong voice can not only try their hand at singing but also make a difference through interaction.
If you have the passion for communication and the confident spunk, then radio jockey is a career that would best suit you. Remember, an attractive appearance can command attention only in the vicinity but an impactful voice can cast its spell on thousands and more.
Who is a Radio Jockey?
A Radio Jockey or a RJ is a person who hosts a talk show on radio. In simple terms he/she is the 'sutradhaar' of an assigned show on radio. He/she hosts the show, reads the script, plays the music and audio advertisement at specific intervals, raises topics of concern, designs subjects for discussion and interacts with callers and listeners via telephone, email, social media and SMSs. Everything that he/she does should be appealing and entertaining.
Some of the skill required for this profession are: Soothing and impactful voice, Voice modulation, Clear diction, Accurate pronunciation, Flair and fluency in the language, Good sense of humor, Individuality, Creativity, Spontaneity, Knowledge of music and current affairs, well-spoken in local dialects.
Some of the Top Institutes in India:
w Radio City School of Broadcasting, Mumbai
w Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi
w Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai
w Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
w Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai
w The Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), Ahmedabad
- Ethical Hacking
Ethical Hacking has been a lucrative career option for many, and not without good reason! It's a challenging job that never gets boring, pays well and also brings a greater sense of achievement.
Hacking is the process of finding vulnerabilities in a system and using these found vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access into the system to perform malicious activities ranging from deleting system files to stealing sensitive information. Hacking is illegal and can lead to extreme consequences if you are caught in the act. People have been sentenced to years of imprisonment because of hacking.
Nonetheless, hacking can be legal if done with permission. Computer experts are often hired by companies to hack into their system to find vulnerabilities and weak endpoints so that they can be fixed. This is done as a precautionary measure against legitimate hackers who have malicious intent. Such people, who hack into a system with permission, without any malicious intent, are known as ethical hackers and the process is known as an ethical hacking.
Ethical Hacking is becoming a highly regarded profession in India these days and is synonymous with "Internet-Security". It opens plenty of job opportunities in both public as well as private sector. Professionals engaged in this field primarily utilize in-depth computer knowledge and creativity to seek out the vulnerable areas in the systems so as to help companies anticipate and prevent hackers from hacking into their networks. Ethical hacker also plays an important role in controlling cyber terrorism
Most ethical hackers begin their career as tech support engineers who climb their way up, by earning certifications like CCNA and CISSP before working towards the ultimate CEH certification.
They are employed by companies and businesses to penetrate their networks either to protect private and sensitive information or to test their network security.
Clear Class XII in Science Stream with IT/Computer Science/ stream and pursue B.Sc. in Computer Science/ BCA/Graduation in Any IT Related Discipline for 3-4 years and can Pursue Certification Courses in Ethical Hacking (CEH, CCNA, SCNS, CPTE, CISSP)
OR
Clear Class XII in Science Stream with IT/Computer Science/ Pursue Certification Courses in Ethical Hacking (CEH, CCNA, SCNS, CPTE, CISSP)
w Understanding of operating systems like Firefox, Linux and Windows
w Knowledge of programming languages like C, C++, Python, Ruby, etc.
w No particular qualification is necessary except for the certification in Ethical Hacking
w Graduation degree in Computer Science will be useful
Apart from this, an ethical hacker must be a creative thinker because black hat hackers are constantly coming up with ingenious ways to exploit a system and it is an ethical hacker's job to predict and prevent such breaches.
We've got umpteen Engineers, Doctors, and Commerce graduates amongst us. It is time to charter the unconventional route with career options that are equally viable in the industry today. It is always best to put your knowledge to better use, especially when you know what you are good at. Our advice: become future ready.
(The author is a Senior Counseling Psychologist.
E-mail id- nidhiprasadcs@ gmail.com)
Views expressed are personal.
(Image Courtesy : Google)