English literature and painting have always been Rasheeda’s forte. So after scoring an overall 75 per cent in the Class X board exams, she should have ideally taken up humanities or fine arts in Plus Two. But she couldn’t go for the arts stream because her father, a government employee, wanted her to study management. Rasheeda had a tough time coping with the accountancy and business studies papers for the next two years. She managed to clear the board exam with a meagre 65 per cent in aggregate and subsequently enrolled in Delhi University’s bachelor of business administration course (BBA).

But one year into the BBA course, Rasheeda was tearing her hair out, trying to comprehend marketing concepts. And her world came crashing when she failed in the annual exam. Her dreams of becoming a manager were shattered and she was not even able to complete her graduation. Rasheeda could not bear the thought of repeating one year in the same class and had to take the help of a psychologist to get rid of her depression.

Rasheeda, like many other students, committed the cardinal mistake of choosing a stream on the basis of marks alone. She should have had a clear assessment of her aptitude and interests. Marks are important, true. But they are not always indicative of a student’s aptitude for a particular subject. For instance, there is a general belief that if you score very high marks in your board exams, say more than 80 per cent or so, you should opt for the sciences, irrespective of whether or not you are cut out for a career in science. That is by no means the right way to decide on a career path. Says Usha Albuquerque, director of Careers Smart Pvt Ltd, a career management centre in Delhi, “You should choose those subjects ? arts, science or commerce ? in which you score easily and where the concepts make sense to you.”

Studies have shown that people tend to perform best in careers that they have an aptitude for. Every child, experts say, has a unique combination of aptitudes. For example, someone with a three-dimensional spatial ability will be more successful as an architect than someone who is good with numbers. Again, a person with strong communication skills, who can connect with people easily, can be more successful as a psychologist than someone who is shy or reserved.

Therefore, recognising these traits is the first step towards choosing an academic stream that will eventually take you to your dream career. “We take the help of aptitude tests to understand the skills and personality of a student,” says clinical psychologist Itishree Batti, who is a counsellor at Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, in the capital.

Do you have it in you?

Aptitude tests are based on various parameters. Futuremap, the career advisory product of education corporate Career Launcher Pvt. Ltd., tests a student’s mechanical abilities, spatial abilities (three-dimensional perceptions) and logical, numerical, verbal and operational skills.

“If a student is keen on taking up science to become an engineer but the test reveals that he or she has a mechanical aptitude and lacks logical skills, we advise them against choosing engineering. That’s because both these skills are required to do well in this stream,” says Itishree Mishra, chief psychologist, Career Launcher. Or if a student has spatial skills and is also good with abstractions, they suggest he or she could be suitable for, say, fashion designing. The duration of most objective aptitude tests ranges from 45 minutes to a couple of hours.

In addition to aptitude and skills, students should also take into account their personality. “Ask yourself, are you the type who is ready to put in consistent hours of work for the next four to five years which is required in careers such as medicine and engineering? Then make an informed choice about the science stream,” says Albuquerque.

If you love interacting with people and have numerical abilities, law or journalism is a good option. Unfortunately, most students first choose a subject and then decide on a career.

The teacher’s opinion is also valuable if you are in a dilemma while selecting an academic stream. “Teachers can be a student’s best advisors. They closely monitor their performance. They can advise whether a particular student has the potential to do well in a particular stream or not,” feels Madhu Chandra, principal, Lotus Valley International School, Noida.

Even the numerous subject combinations offered by the education boards, Central or otherwise, now give a student a wider choice to select subjects suited to their aptitude and interest. Needless to say, an informed choice of subjects can go a long way in building one’s career.