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EDUCATION TRIBUNE | Tuesday, July 25, 2000, Chandigarh, India |
Career hotline Campus scene |
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Career hotline I am a secretary with over 12 years of experience adept at typing, filing, taking dictation, fixing appointments, answering phone calls, making travel arrangements, car pick-ups and routine day-to-day jobs. I have a three-year-old daughter and we have moved to our own house in Mohali which makes commuting to Chandigarh difficult. Is there anything else I can do? Rakesh Sharma, Shimla With the increasing trend of companies moving to the Gurgaon and Faridabad from the more expensive central parts of the city, a degree of persistence should get you a job involving lesser commuting. You have an excellent job profile, and with your added maturity, companies should be happy to consider you. Instead of waiting for job ads, why not take the initiative and write to companies with offices in areas that suit you? Remember, not all vacancies are advertised. Alternately, you might like to consider working from home. Fax, internet and modem, permit instant transmission of documents. You are computer literate and if you have a computer at your home you may try your hand at word processing, web page designing, backroom documentation for large firms, creating databases, graphic designing, etc. Basing your main activity at home, you can choose to specialise in any of the following depending on your academic level, aptitude and skills, training and experience etc. Giving tuitions, running a catering service, boutique or infant care facility, beauty parlour, counselling, cookery classes, dance/music classes, fitness/aerobics, network marketing (Oriflame, Avon, Aviance, Tupperware, Modicare etc.) are some of the options for you. Another option is to take up direct or tele-marketing for marketing firms. You could even consider shift work at some of the large call centres coming up in Gurgaon. You could also take up editing or proof reading for publishing houses. If you have good contacts in the corporate sector, you could even run a successful placement service or travel agency from home. The options are endless, but you will need to weigh your resources and explore the requirement for your products or services before you begin. I’m keen on doing MCA after graduation. Could you please tell me about the institutions offering MCA courses and also the job prospects. Also, please recommend books on this subject. Parminder Kaur, Chandigarh MCA is offered by a large number of universities including regional engineering colleges (RECs). The software industry offers the following job opportunities for MCAs as: * Analyst Programmer * Application Programmer * CAD Designer * CAD/CAM Technician * Computer Consultant * Computer Graphics Specialist * Computer Operations Manager * Computer Security Analyst * Customer Engineer * Data Communications Specialist * Information Services Executive * Inspection Supervisor * Management Information Systems Analyst * Operations Research Analyst * Program Librarian * Regional Manager * Software Services Representative * Systems Analyst * Systems Design Specialist * Systems Development Manager * Systems Maintenance Analyst * Technical Services Manager * Technical Training Manager A majority of the above-mentioned jobs require competence in systems analysis. The job of a Systems Analyst involves analysing the different sets of manual procedures in use in an organisation and design and develop computerised processes to replace them with. The Systems Analyst is a professional problem solver. The job involves analysing problems or informational needs of an organisation and fulfilling through the design of efficient patterns of information flows from the data sources to the computer. For complete information regarding MCA courses, eligibility criteria and job prospects in the field of computers, you may refer to Careers in Computers published by CARING. My Maths is not so great. If I do BCom without Maths through correspondence, can I still enroll for professional courses such as CA, CS and MBA? Amit Khandpal, Ludhiana You could do a BCom (Pass) without Maths and still do your CA/CS alongside. Whether you do it through full-time study or through distance education is immaterial. While maths is not a statutory requirement for these professional courses, it is certainly an asset if taken at the graduation-level. For instance, you do need to be fairly comfortable with Maths to tackle the quantitative ability section of the MBA entrance test. Although knowledge of maths up to Class XII-level is sufficient, speed in solving the large number of questions is of the essence. So even if you decide to drop maths, make sure you keep in touch with the subject and have your fundas absolutely clear. If you were to seriously get down to revising your maths syllabus right from Class X upwards, you would realise that it’s not such a terrible subject after all. If you get a good aggregate, why not take BCom (Hons) - either regular or through correspondence in the first year? If you find it unmanageable, you can always switch over to BCom (Pass) the following year. All said and done, an Honours course is a more desirable option. So do give it a sincere try. I am a Commerce graduate and I wish to become an Income Tax Officer or Central Excise Officer. Please let me know the selection procedure and maximum age limit for recruitment. Vishwesh Gupta, Jammu If you want to become an Income Tax Officer or Central Excise Officer, you should first take the Civil Services Examination conducted by the UPSC. In Civil Services, both the posts are that of a Group A officer. The maximum age limit for this examination (for general candidates) is 30 years, eligibility being graduation. Be on the look out for the UPSC advt. in Employment News in December. You could also take the examinations for Inspectors of Central Excise, Income Tax, etc. conducted by the Staff Selection Commission. For this the eligibility is graduation and the maximum age limit is 25 years. I have been diagnosed to have juvenile hypertension and have been advised to opt for a non-stressful career. What are the fields open to me? Rajiv Rai, Jalandhar Although some jobs where you have to adhere to strict deadlines are inherently stressful and anxiety creating i.e. advertising, marketing, media, treasury and stock brokering, air traffic control etc. A lot also depends on your attitude and temperament. However, since you have a clinical problem it does make sense to avoid such jobs which are real time and mission critical. Of course, anything that you don’t enjoy doing can be equally stressful. This does not mean that all these fields are denied to you. Each area of work has a front end and a back end i.e., in hotels you have the front office which deals with clients who are checking in and checking out, billing and handling irate customers. And then you have the back-office jobs like HR, Accounts, F & B, maintenance etc. which are equally important but relatively less stressful. Similarly, in an airline the job of an air traffic controller is certainly more stressful than other ground jobs. As a matter of fact, there are a whole lot of such back-office jobs like editing, accounts, planning, designing which you could happily opt for depending on your interests and aptitude. |
Campus scene SHIMLA: Sinking differences the Student Federation of India, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the National Student Union of India have launched a vigorous move to revive the cultural heritage of the state. The unions performed traditional dances and raised issues faced by the university students and society through plays and choreography. "Kulluvi nati", Laholi nati", "Himachali nati", "Kannuri"and "Bhanta" were main attractions. "Thoda" was a unique item by SFI. It depicted the art of archery in which dancers carrying bows and arrows exhibited their skills. It is the traditional art of Sirmaur, but now has extended to Chopal and Theog areas. ‘Anhadh’ the name given by the ABVP to their one-day cultural activities, fascinated everyone. ‘Mohna’ a true love story was heart rendering. The NSUI regaled the audience with ‘Sham-e-Gazal.’ It was a 3 to 4 programme in the evening. Not only boys attended ‘Sham-e-Gazal’ but girls almost equalled them in numbers. The university is busy in various other cultural programmes. Various departments are organising farewell functions. The campus is agog with activity giving an opportunity to students to express their creativity in various art forms. The entire atmosphere is that of
festivity with academics taking a back seat for a while. Such
programmes also help in bringing the students as well as teachers
closer to one another.
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