Oh! So you are in high school?!

Originally published in Times Of India Goa Edition

Originally a union territory and now a state Goa happens to be the smallest state in India. Despite its small size it has more than 2150 schools one state university (Goa University) and more than 50 colleges offering a variety of professional courses. These figures are more than that compared to the number of schools and colleges that Sikkim has despite its larger size.

Goa probably offers the cheapest average if not the best quality of education when compared to other colleges outside Goa. Most schools here are run by the state. But there exist schools that are operating as per CBSE and ICSE boards. People tend to have developed a mindset that children from financially superior families tend to go to non-state broad schools but in fact such is not the case.  The non-state board run schools and high schools tend to offer better exposure and facilities as and when compared to Goa board schools. This is probably because state board schools tend to face certain internal operational hurdles due to their strict dependence on the directorate of education.

Goa has a vast number of colleges for higher education offering professional courses in the streams of engineering, medicine, homeopathy, Ayurveda, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, psychology, home science, commerce, economics, arts, music, management and law amongst others. Most people tend to be unaware of the existence of such educational lines available in their own state.

Aside from this this IGNOU or Indira Gandhi National Open University offers a vast variety of courses in numerous streams through correspondence course is worth a mention here despite not being based in Goa.

Though goa has several good colleges one must be aware that they are not well known outside Goa. If you are one of those persons who dreams of a job outside Goa you might as well get your professional degree from outside Goa. This will better your chances of securing a better job easily. Since many colleges outside goa have a well-established name at international level. Parents must not hesitate in supporting their child’s decision regarding the same. Since studying away from home teaches them independence makes them resilient and strong, apart from proving exposure and experience like no other. Eventually the student himself will feel what his other friends are missing out on.

Often I have noticed that parents and students are both unaware of the extent of the competition that they will have to face and the various types of courses available at their disposal also the high number of entrance exams that can be answered to gain entry into these streams by merit. And thus due to this ignorance have to face the dilemma of either losing a year because the student did not get sufficient rank for a particular exam or go ahead and pay through their nose via loan or other means for a management seat which in my personal opinion is worse than losing a year.

In order to avoid such a situation students of pre-university level and parents have to take note of the following points:

• carefully check out the courses offered by various universities outside Goa and find what you are really interested in, a science line (engg., medicine, allied health) or non-science line(commerce, economics) or arts, etc. Many people are unaware because one never bothers to inquire about what courses are available besides the conventional ones of engineering and medicine. It might be beneficial to consider some other courses such as marine engineering, chemical engineering, mechatronics, biomedical engineering, etc. for engineering related lines and doctor of pharmacy, BSc.Health Information Administration, Bachelor of Audiology & Speech Language Pathology , physiotherapy, Bachelor of perfusion technology, BSc Nuclear Medicine Technology and nursing for medical and allied health interested students. Many of these health sciences courses don’t even require and entrance exam and pay is quite good too if one plans to do master’s degree in the same or takes the correct job path after the degree.
•  Choose what you want to do, a bachelor’s degree, a diploma or a simple polytechnic course. One might consider a diploma to be as good as a degree. Don’t be disillusioned by such things. When one applies for a job a degree always has superior value and benefits and is give higher priority as compared to a diploma.
• don’t ever be of the opinion that you will/can answer only GCET and get into your line of interest. The paper setting and ranking GCET like other CET’s is unpredictable. Do you really want the fate of your career left to chance? Answer all possible CET’s that you can at all India level for universities outside Goa.

Some CET’s have been mentioned below

• AIPMT, AFMC, COMEDK, ASSO-CET, SRM CET, MANIPAL UNIVERSITY ONLINE ENTRANCE TEST, AIIMS-CET, JIPMER, CMC VELLOR CET, ANNAMALAI UNIVERSITY CET,BITSAT, JEE, AIEEE
• consider what to do in case you don’t get into the line that you want, some of the questions you can ask yourself are

1. What is your second and third or fourth choice? Universities such as Manipal university ask this in their application form for their CET so that they can help you better.
2. Should I try again next year?
3. Should I go for a management seat?

The above choices need to be made at the 11th grade level itself since this provides just enough time to think over and find out roughly the application procedure and dates. Most applications begin from December onwards and exams dates can often overlap. Doing this early will avoid last minute panic attacks and confusion that is often faced by students when they don’t get the line they want.

Remember if you can’t do what you like go ahead with another closely related line and start liking it. You can’t always get what you want. Who knows what life has in store for you. One needs to maintain a positive and optimistic vision and attitude within reason. Do your duty that is all that matters the rest is not in your hands and no point worrying about the same either. Best of luck.


-----Raghuvir Keni