Courses to expand your horizon

Usha Albuquerque

The Board exams are finally over and you can heave a sigh of relief. But not for long — you need to start thinking about the college programme you will be pursuing for the next three-four years. With admission cut-offs reaching astronomical heights, getting admission into a college of choice does not present a very hopeful picture even for the best of students.

Here are some interesting courses that may prove to be worthwhile alternatives for students of Commerce & Humanities streams:

1 Bachelor of Planning

A four-year intensive training programme which provides students with a broad knowledge and the skills necessary to plan for an integrated and balanced development of human settlements.

These include regulation of land use for residential and commercial purposes, planning for economic and social development, construction of roads and bridges, planning for water supply for domestic, industrial and commercial purposes, sewerage, sanitation and solid waste management, protection of environment, and so on.

Eligibility: Class XII from any stream with mathematics and minimum 50 per cent marks. Selection is normally based on Class XII marks and a personal interview.

What can you do after this?: Planning graduates can work with the departments of Town & Country Planning, various government ministries, in organisations providing services in the fields of urban and regional planning, housing, transportation, urban design, as well as with international organisations. They can also continue further studies with a master's degree in specialisations such as housing, landscape architecture, transport planning, architectural conservation, environmental planning, urban design, etc.

Other avenues: Some well known institutes for B Planning

• School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi, and Bhopal
• Sushant School of Arts & Architecture, Gurgaon, Haryana
• CEPT University, Ahmedabad

2 Course in tea-tasting

If you love drinking tea why not get paid for doing just that? Here is a course which trains you to detect and differentiate between the various tea qualities. Tea tasting involves looking at the brightness (blackish or brownish), colour (like coppery or bright red), strength and body of the tea, and flavour, to be able to distinguish teas according to their type, specific region and quality, and to examine the evenness, colour or brightness of dry/infused leafs to know the strength and body of the tea.

By the end of the training your palate will be proficient enough to register even minute differences. You will also learn about tea cultivation, the manufacturing process, sales and marketing as well.

Eligibility : Basic educational background - Class XII from any stream. Graduates are also eligible for this course. You can take up this course alongside graduation, or after graduation with any degree.

What can you do after this? Tea tasters work in the tea gardens, or with tea trading companies in the marketing and blending departments, tea auctions and with tea brokerage firms. There are also jobs in tea associations and positions on the Tea Board of India. Tea tasters also advise researchers on the commercial factors like taste, economic viability and maturabilty for tea development.

Other avenues: There are many colleges that offer diploma and certificate courses in tea tasting and tea management.

• Tea Tasters Academy in Coonoor in the Nilgiris
• Indian Institute of Plantation Management, Jnana Bharathi Campus, P.0 Malathalli, Bangalore-560056 www.iipmb.com
• NITM, Darjeeling Tea Research and Management Association P.O Kadamtala-734433, Dist. Darjeeling, West Bengal
• Assam Darjeeling Tea Research Centre, Kurseong, Darjeeling-734203(West Bengal)

3 Undergraduate diploma in craft design

Indian Institute of Craft & design, Jaipur

This four-year programme, considered equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, combines traditional knowledge and skills that will help keep India's crafts and traditions alive. If you are creative and love craft work, this course is ideal. You will learn the basics of design, following which you can choose to specialise in hard material (wood, metal, stone), fired material (terracotta, ceramics) or soft material (paper, fibre), fabric followed by eight weeks of training/ internship at an NGO, developmental organisation or social enterprise, or at a craft based Industry, Company or Design studio. It will help you understand various craft traditions, their strengths and weaknesses and learn to develop design solutions for contemporary markets, and evolve methodologies and usages that are relevant to modern India.

Eligibility: Class XII in any stream

What can you do after this? Such a programme enables you to work with craftsmen in the traditional craft sector, or with designers, design and production houses using traditional skills and materials, in a craft based industry, with NGOs and international organisations.

4 Bachelor’s degree in a foreign language

If you have a knack for picking up languages, a bachelor’s degree in any foreign language can be the passport to any number of interesting careers. Being a degree programme you not only learn to write and speak in the language, but also its literature and culture, so that your usage and understanding of the language and its people, is enhanced for any professional purpose. Some of the languages you can study include French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Arabic, and others.

Eligibility: Class XII from any subject stream

What can you do after this? Foreign languages help us to communicate with potential clients, sell our ideas and bond with people across the globe. Employers tend to prefer candidates who speak one or more foreign languages, more so as today when we have a global world and a global economy.

There are thousands of multinational companies with offices or trading partners in India, and require foreign language expertise for business transactions, reporting and translation of documents, as well as general communication.

A foreign language specialist can also work in the hospitality sector, in tourism, BPO sector, airlines and even as a teaching faculty in reputed schools.

You can also look for an online job which requires language skills. Interpreters and language translators are also in good demand today. Publishing houses are also looking at foreign language experts for translation of major literary works.

Institutes teaching foreign languages:

• The Jawaharlal Nehru University, www.jnu.ac.in
• Panjab University, Chandigarh, www.puchd.ac.in
• Punjabi University, Patiala , www.punjabiuniversity.ac.in

5 Bachelor of Mass Media St Xavier’s College, Mumbai

This course combines the basics of media and communications with a rigorous academic programme that trains students to understand the fundamental sciences of sociology, psychology, politics, economics and the like, to apply this knowledge in their writings, and other media related activities. Subjects in journalism, media studies, advertising and public relations introduce the students to the current trends in the media industry.

Eligibility: Class XII in any subject stream. Selection is on the basis of an entrance test and interview.

Similar programme offered by Sophia College, Mumbai, and several other colleges in different cities across the country

What can you do after this?: After a degree in mass media students can work with media and production houses, television channels, newspapers and magazines, advertising agencies and public relations firms, corporate communications, event management firms, web and travel writing, social media marketing, market research organisations, government and international organisations.

6 Five-year integrated humanities degree course — IIT Madras

This is an inter-disciplinary programme covering humanities and social sciences and equips the students with an academic as well as professional perspective.

It is suitable for students from any subject stream looking for a broad base of learning, and a desire to be agents of change in today’s globalised world.

This programme offers two specialised streams — Development Studies, and English — with a mix of core subjects and electives, such as Indian economy, philosophy, public management and so on.

Eligibility: Class XII in any stream with minimum 60 per cent marks. Selection through the Humanities and Social Sciences Examination (HSEE).

What can you do after this ?: Such programmes transcend the boundaries between Arts and Science streams and focus on developing the student as an aware, critical thinking, multi-perspective individual capable of seeking fulfilling employment in a number of varying professional fields. The broad base of knowledge and skills is useful for a career practically in any field.

Those selecting the development stream can work with national and international organisations, NGOs, in rural management, CSR, development fields, civil services and law.

Those selecting English can look forward to careers in media, communications, marketing, publishing, management, international relations and so on.

Other avenues:

• The Tata Institute of Social Sciences at Hyderabad, Guwahati, Tujapur offers an Integrated Master’s degree programme (5 year duration).
• UG programme at Ashoka University, Haryana.
• FLAME School of Liberal Education (FSLE) Flame University, Pune.

— The writer is Director, Careers Smart Pvt Ltd., New Delhi