“I want to become a doctor and help villagers who to do have access to hospitals..”
“My dream is to create the  8th wonder of the world….”
“I want to be the next best cricketer ever, breaking all the world  records….”
“I want to lead a music band and travel around the world performing innumerable concerts……”

If we sit around and start talking about our kids and their careers, we will invariably be exchanging all the aforesaid dream statements of our kids. Frankly, we all are at a loss with how to help them, though we would want to leave no stone unturned to make them realize their dreams. The world has changed since we were job-hunting as new graduates. Today there are so many career options for our kids and we have to be well prepared to set them up for a life of self-sufficiency, meaning and happiness.

5 key things that as parents we could do to build a career for our child –

• Encourage your child to dream big and high, as dreams are the guiding stars which will aid  them not to settle with a bronze , but rather run to achieve a gold
• Awaken your child’s interest and assess his/her personality at a very early age. Their interests will escort their dreams down to earth and their personality will act as bifocal to explore their career.
• Draft a career plan which is both practical and achievable. Career options should certainly match with kids’ interests and skills. Understanding the career options very well, will lead them to the right college to matriculate. Right college with right degree plays a key role in realization of the dream career.
• Providing the right career tools in the form of extra coaching classes and extra- curricular activities will help our child  in the career building process.
• Financial planning – The most important factor that will help your child to convert his/her dream to reality.

Have you ever thought as to how much would it take to fulfil your child’s dream? Are you planning to enrol your kid to the top universities in India or you are sending him/her abroad? Have you started saving to sponsor your child’s education. Have a look at these few prime career options and you could plan accordingly.

Doctor –.Your kid has to do a 5 years MBBS in domestic colleges or a 4 years MBBS in an international college. Now assuming a 5% inflation over the next 10 years, the overall cost would be around 55 lakhs if you are looking at domestic colleges and would be around 2.35 crores in an international college.
Best colleges in India  - AIIMS – Delhi ,
Christian Medical College – Vellore
Maulana Medical College – Delhi
Armed Forces Medical College – Pune
Kasturba Medical College – Manipal
Grant Medical college– Mumbai

Engineer – Study period assumed in this case is around 4 years in any stream – chemical, mechanical, electrical etc. Now if your child manages to get into IITs or NIT, the cost would be around 4 lakhs and if your child gets into BITs Pilani or VIT, the cost would vary between 12 lakhs to 20 lakhs and if you are sending your child to international college like Princeton, the cost would be around 1.8 crores. 
Best colleges in India – All the IITs
BHU Varanasi
BITs Pilani
VIT Vellore
DTU Delhi

Entrepreneur/ Business Man – This is for a period of 3-4 years of Graduation in Business Management and followed by 2 years of MBA. Assuming that he would pursue his MBA in one of the IIMs or top colleges in India, you should be prepared with 27 lakhs approx and if you are looking at colleges in UK, Singapore, Hongkong or US, the overall finance required would be around 1.7 crores.
Best colleges in India  -All the IIMs
Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management
 S P Jain Institute of Management
Faculty of Management Studies
Xavier Institute of Management
NarseeMonjee Institute of Management

Musician –Music Colleges in India provide variety of Music and there are several Music institutes in India. There is lot of career scope for candidates who opt for music colleges in India.To make your child strike the right chords and become a great musician, it would cost around 5 lakhs in India and to proficient in western notes from colleges like Berklee college of Music and to make him/her more versatile, it would cost around 65 lakhs.

Best Fine Arts colleges in India–VisvaBharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal
Delhi School of Music 
School of Fine Arts and Music, Indore
KK Wagh College of Performing Arts, Nashik
Adarsh Kala Mandir Madhya Pradesh
KM Music Conservatory Chennai

Teacher –As per Aviva’s Education insight, you need to save about 5 lakhs to make your child to do B Ed or M Ed in Indian colleges . On the other hand, if you are pursuing them to do a full time Graduate Teacher Education Program from Portland State University or any other international colleges, you need to save around 21 lakhs.
Few best colleges in India– K.J. Somaiya Comprehensive College of Education, Mumbai
Bombay Teacher's Training College, Mumbai
Lady Irwin College, Delhi
SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai
   St. Xavier’s College of Education, Patna
D.M.College of Teacher Education, Imphal

Cricketer – In this case, the coaching period is about 7 years and the annual fees would be around 70K taking into consideration an inflation rate of 5 % after 10 years. The current cost in Academy like Dronacharya Cricket foundation is around 5 lakhs. So we need to plan our savings accordingly.
Best cricket academies in India – Shewag Cricket academy, Gurgaon
 National Cricket academy , Dehradun
 Karnataka Institute of cricket , Bangalore
 Cricket India Academy

In short, it is very important that we have a good saving plan to help our child accomplish their dream career. Care should be taken that it has to be their choice, and we must never push them in the direction we think is best for them. Rightly said by Plato “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”  As matured parents we should allow our kids to dream big and aid to make them achieve the same.

– By Jayannti Ramanath

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