So you are confused what kind of specialization you want to take in your course? Shall you go for what your friends are going or listen to your heart? Sounds similar to what you are going through ? Read on to clear the confusion and decide how you can decide a specialization in your course.
1) Be aware of your interests
Ask yourself what are your favourite areas in your career. Are you a marketing person or someone who likes financial ratios? Are you a top notch coder or a brilliant networks guy. Be clear as to what you are good at. What you are passionate about. If you choose a specialization in a field which you are passionate about chances are high that you will succeed in that. Be aware of what will you like to do in the long term and try to take a specialization that will align with the larger vision you have for your professional life.
2) Talk to people
Talk to your friends, seniors, professors, alumni to figure out what they think about different areas in your course. This will give you a good experience about how things actually happen. A word of caution here is that different people will suggest you different specializations, so always match it with your interests. Remember take opinion from everyone but the decision should be yours and yours only.
3) Do some research on the internet
Talking about research we don’t mean that you find out what is taught in that particular specialization. Yes that is one part of your research. But you will also have to do some research exploring what are the career options in the different specializations. Which of the specializations being offered align with your larger goal in life.
4) Don’t fall for the false positives
So you hear from everyone that currently software professionals are in demand and hence you decide to take up software engineering as your specialization. Have you ever give a thought that what if when you graduate after 4 years will software engineers will be in the same demand as they are right now? Ditching Finance and opting for HR because it doesn’t involve playing with numbers ? Are you sure HR’s don’t do analytics? Taking a specialization based on a general perception or a pre-conceived notion will always hurt in the long run.
So don’t fall for the false positives and do a thorough research to take an appropriate specialization. A larger part of your professional life will depend on that.
Featured image courtesy : Pixabay
Jitu is Co-Founder of Mantras2Success. He has Engineering & MBA degrees to his name, along with 10+ years of corporate work experience in fortune 500 companies. Jitu is passionate about improving the careers of the modern day professional. He would be reading books or watching documentaries if not fulfilling his dreams at Mantras2Success.