Nitya Gupta is a class XI Humanities student at The Lawrence School, Panipat. She is a confident girl and has been consistently good at academics throughout her student life.

Background

Nitya, until recently, was quite confused about her choice of subjects after class 10th. Given her brilliant performance in academics, everybody expected her to take science in class 11th. This, however, was not something that Nitya wanted. She wanted to explore the domain of Humanities. The more she discussed the idea, more the people advised her against it, citing no scope, fewer opportunities and lesser pay as reasons. She was also concerned that she would be perceived to be 'unintelligent' if she takes up humanities.

As a result, she became unsure about the right step for her future. Even after several discussions with her parents, she wasn't able to find the answers to her queries. It was then she approached Mindler.

How We Helped

To help Nitya, we had to help her select a stream that would be aptly suited to her goals and interests, and one that would open up the right career opportunities for her after class 12th., To do this, we followed a three-step process:

1. Gaining an accurate picture of her strengths, weaknesses and abilities to identify which streams and subjects work best for her.
2. Choosing the right stream and subject combinations out of recommended options.
3. Developing awareness about the various career options available with each stream, to help her gain a direction about her long-term ambitions and goals.

Stream Assessment - Understanding Nitya's Interests and Abilities

The assessment took Nitya through a series of questions to evaluate and identify her fit with different stream options. Her results indicated that:

1. Nitya was good at communicating and engaging with people, and would enjoy careers that allowed for people interaction in the form of discussions, debates or group projects.
2. She was enthusiastic by nature, and actively took initiative to complete tasks and participate in activities.
3. She was an extrovert who worked best in environments involving people, and found it easy to form connections with others.
4. She was good at thinking creatively and coming up with innovative ideas. She had a strong ability to observe and perceive things in her environment.
5. She was comfortable dealing with numbers and had good numerical abilities.

Taking in these and more such insights based on her responses to questions, the assessment suggested Nitya her top 2 stream choices - Humanities and Commerce with Maths.

Addressing Concerns and Exploring Options

With the assessment results in place, Nitya consulted with our career experts through counselling sessions.

During the one-on-one sessions, Nitya shared multiple thoughts and concerns related to her stream choice. She conveyed her inhibitions about choosing humanities due to the many stereotypes associated with it. A lot of her friends, neighbours and relatives had told her that humanities has very limited scope ahead, and that it is a stream suited only to academically average students, not someone intelligent like her. All these ideas had gotten her quite worried.

An important step, thus, was to give her the right perspective and clear all the misconceptions she had in her mind about humanities. Our counsellors informed her about the multitude of career options in humanities, and even supplemented this with examples and data that showcased a rising trend in humanities career options and opportunities.

To give her more in-depth understanding of the scope of humanities, we shared various resources regarding the range of career options available in humanities and urged her to read and explore.

After extensive reading, Nitya gained a thorough understanding about the tremendous scope that the domain of humanities offers. Our counsellors, through examples and narratives of several students, convinced her that her intelligence couldn't be measured by the choice of her subjects, and she could build a successful career in any field she had the aptitude and passion for.

Selecting Stream and Subject Combinations

With Nitya now much more open to exploring different stream options, we moved on to discuss the results of her assessment. The counsellors discussed both of her stream matches with her in detail, and helped her understand how each of the elements tested contributed to her stream recommendations, Humanities and Commerce with Maths.

The assessment had indicated that Nitya was quite inquisitive as a person, enjoyed interacting with people, and had good verbal abilities. This was verified during our discussion with her, where she told us how she had always been a part of debates, discussions, and oratory competitions in school. We also found that Nitya had a deep interest in reading about the human mind, and wanted to drive some kind of social impact through her work.

On the basis of the assessment results and our interactions with Nitya, we found humanities to be the better fit for her, and thus recommended her to explore that option. To this end, we shared detailed information about both humanities and commerce to help her better understand her interests.

Amongst the two, Humanities particularly interested Nitya. Since she had already been considering taking it up, her thoughts were now validated.

The next step was to select her subjects. We wanted to leave multiple career options open for Nitya, and thus recommended subjects that allowed her that flexibility. Based on our understanding about Nitya's personality and skills, we suggested her to take up Psychology, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Geography and English as her subjects. These subjects went well with her strengths and also gave her access to multiple career options, particularly Psychology and Civil Services.

Discussions about Career

Nitya expressed that through her research and exploration, she had found Psychology and Civil Services to be interesting career options. Our counsellors informed her that both of these careers were well suited to her and were possible options she could explore in the future.

To help her explore these options further, we shared specifics details about them, including the path she would follow, the eligibility criteria, career opportunities and top colleges. We also told her that she could pursue civil services only after graduation, which she was unaware of.

Finally, we urged her to maintain a strong focus on both academics and extra-curriculars to progress towards her goals, and thus recommended her the books she needed to read, and the activities she needed to participate in for her class 11th & 12th

Outcome

Nitya is now successfully pursuing the Humanities stream with Psychology, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Geography and English as her subjects. She aspires to pursue Psychology after class 12th.

Nitya had enrolled in the Mindler Explore program for stream selection.

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