Next Steps- deciding on first list of subjects
It will not be easy for my daughter to decide on her career interests so early in age. With her limited reading outside her school textbooks, I decided to start suggesting a list of subjects that she should pick-up. I am pretty sure, by this approach of mine, I will not be deciding for her. My suggestions are just going to help her learn the process of deciding.
The subjects she should pick-up are:
a. Social science: With increasing role of technology in our daily lives, the paradigm of social science goes beyond human-to-human interaction. An exposure to the basic science, will lay a strong foundation for her.
b. Psychology: Specialising in Psychology will help her master the theories pertaining to human behaviour. I will personally share findings from latest empirical research to keep her abreast with the relevance of theories she studies in her curriculum.
c. Consumer Behaviour: This is a subject mostly on the application side of Psychology. This course has to be done outside of her regular curriculum since there are hardly any institutes offering it as a specialisation in India.
d. Research Methodology: This course will help her learn research design, conducting empirical studies and comprehend the existing empirical studies better. Post this coursework, I will not have to summarise the findings as mentioned above in point b.
e. Designing: Design is omnipresent in everything we use, engage or interact with. A formal course on ‘design’ as a subject will help her learn the design principles better.
f. Software programming: Some exposure to coding will help tune her logical skills to applying them. May be she codes our her first software product herself.
g. A design software: Adobe photoshop remains the most common and effective application to express creativity.
Once she is done with these 7 subjects in a span of 5 year post 2019, she in my opinion can be:
a. Behavioural scientist
b. UI/UX designer with a Software company
c. Set up her own independent research/product design company
d. And so much more
I have to be sensitive about not enforcing any of my opinions or viewpoints on her, atleast explicitly. After it is for her to decide her future.