Career counselling: questions and answers

Q1: I want to take your precious advice regarding my career. I appeared in my final exams of Electronic Engineering from Karachi. Please guide me what should I study now? MS or MBA or other and which one you think is the best? Should I study abroad and which country is cheaper so I can afford my expenses. Kindly guide me for the solution. (Haneef Khan - Karachi)

Ans: There are two clear preferences for you. If you proceed for an MS, I would advise you to start work for a couple of years and then focus on doing a management course such as MBA. With your current background I would recommend that you do a postgraduate degree in Mechatronics or the second option would be Communication Engineering choosing Wireless and Mobile Communication as a specialisation. Both degrees are here to stay for many years to come and shall not limit your prospects abroad and in Pakistan.

Q2: Sir, my brother has recently done Mechatronic Engineering (Robotics) from EME-NUST with aggregate GPA 2.50. He wants to continue his further studies, but he is a little bit confused either to join MBA or MS programme. Kindly suggest either of the fields and also the related subject for MS (if suggested) as admission in Electronics or Mechanics is not possible with GPA 2.50. (Ayesha Iftikhar- Islamabad)

Ans: I would advise your brother to work for two or three years in the industry, acquire some knowledge and experience before opting for a management degree, for an instance e.g., MBA. It is important at this stage to get the practical experience of industry and machines and apply the knowledge and move forward.

Q3: My son did BE in Telecom Engineering from Islamabad in 2017 with 2.59 GPA. He did his Masters in Engineering Management from UK in 2019 with good grades. Presently he is engaged with me in looking after my small-scale software development related company. He intends to do PhD in Disaster Management. Please advise what we should do? (Kareem Nawaz - Islamabad)

Ans: As your son is now a qualified engineer along with a superb top up master’s degree in Engineering Management, I would have suggested him to work in the industry for a few years before proceeding for a PhD. However, if he is adamant in doing a PhD and that too in Disaster Management, he would need to explore the subject area quite a bit and make up his mind in developing a worth researching topic in disaster management. There are a number of universities around the world which offer disaster management and once he has chosen the subject that he would like to do research in I will advise him further.

Q4: I did BSC Telecom Engineering in 2019 and now confused that should I do further studies or I should apply for any job? Please advise me. (Muzammil Qureshi- Gujranwala)

Ans: The most suitable option would be to go through the industry for few years and gather some knowledge and professional experience before proceeding for further studies. This will help to build up a base to explore whether you should specialise in the same area or diversify towards management.

(Syed Azhar Husnain Abidi is a renowned educationist in Pakistan, with more than 20 years of experience as provider of education counselling services. He has represented Pakistan in over 100 national and international seminars, conferences and fora. He is a recipient of the most coveted civil award Tamgha-e-Imtiaz).