Path to follow after Class 10th

ishant_mrinal · August 21, 2022, 4:04pm

In this post we will discuss about the path to follow after class 10. Career after class 10 or what to do after class 10.

The action you take after class 10 will define the direction of your career and the extent of your success. It is very important to carefully make the right decision based on your choice of career.

Select a Career

You should be decisive and select only a single career and work towards materializing it. You can refer to this post on how to choose a career. How to choose a career?

Upon finalizing the career choice, you have to set your short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals to achieve the career objectives. For example, if you have chosen to become a doctor, then your short-term goals are:

Complete class 12th in science stream with Biology, Chemistry, and physics as core subjects and score at least the qualifying percentage which is 50%.
Get a good rank in the NEET exam.

Set your goals

Similarly, you can set your goals, to know more about how to set your goals, you can refer to this post: How to achieve any Goal?

Once you have set your goals and you are determined to work towards them. The next important step is to choose the right college/school, coaching center (if applicable), and learning resources.

The two years comprising class 11 and class 12 play a pivotal role in achieving your goal. Achieving your career objective should be the main criteria to choose a school. While selecting you must ask these questions:

The rank of the school/college
Whether it has the right set of teachers
Previous years results
Required infra, such as laboratories (for science stream)
Time required to communicate
Attendance requirements
Extracurricular activities loads
Academic loads

Whether your goal is to become a doctor/engineer/lawyer/pilot/professor/teacher etc, there will always (less % for pure science and arts) involve an entrance examination to get admitted for your undergraduate study.

You have to efficiently utilize the 2 years of your 11-12th curriculum to crack the corresponding entrance test along with your general class 12th exam.

Entrance examinations for Engineering/Medical/Law//Science/Commerce/Arts

Based on career choices one may need to crack any of the following entrance exams.

Engineering/Medical entrance (JEE mains, JEE Advanced, NEET)
1. Other state-level entrance examinations give admission to state-sponsored colleges.
Law school entrance (CLAT)
Apart from the CLAT entrance test, there are the following two possibilities:
1. There are other state-level entrance examinations
2. Selection based on qualifying exams marks
Science school entrance (CUET)
1. CUET for admission to central universities
2. State universities mostly use qualifying exam marks, and often don’t use any entrance test.
Commerce school entrance (CPT)
1. Apart from CPT, there are other states/college level examinations based on the curriculum.
2. State universities mostly use qualifying exam marks, and often don’t use any entrance test.
Arts school entrance (CUET)
1. CUET for admission to central universities
2. State universities mostly use qualifying exam marks, and often don’t use any entrance test.

If the student wants to become an engineer, cracking engineering entrance is important, to become a doctor cracking medical entrance is important, to become a lawyer cracking law school entrance is important, etc.

Modality and Difficulty of the entrance exams:

Both engineering and medical exams test the student problem-solving. While engineering entrance tests focus more on mathematical problem solving but medical entrance exams also tests student theoretical knowledge.

Law entrance exam tests the student’s general knowledge, English skills, logical, and legal reasoning, and quantitative skills.

Students opting for admission in CA/CS degree-related institutes will require to crack the respective universities’ entrance examinations, These exams also

Science, Commerce, and Arts undergraduate admissions are mostly based on qualifying exam marks for state-level universities. For central universities, a new entrance exam named CUET is conducted for admission to any central universities across India. For CA/CS in the commerce stream, there are entrance examinations such as CPT, CSEET, etc. CUET/CPT/CSEET also tests the student’s general knowledge, language skills, and a specific selected subject knowledge. Students can select a subject which he/she likes to opt for as Hons (major) in the undergraduate program., such as maths/physics/politics, etc.

Dedicated Preparation requirements

Engineering / Medical

To crack engineering/medical entrance students need to follow their respective exam syllabus and prepare accordingly. Dedicated preparation is crucial to crack the entrance exam.

Students must prepare and opt for coaching related to the particular entrance test to gather problem-solving skills, feel the competitive environment, and understand the question patterns. It will be very difficult to crack these exams without dedicated coaching.

It is always advised to take offline coaching for these entrance exams. But If it is not possible due to any logistical reason, one can also opt for online coaching and prepare dedicatedly.

The reason to choose offline over online is that in offline coaching the interaction with teachers and fellow students gives a sense of competition and belongingness. It is always good to interact with smart people and learn from them and understand their preparation strategies.

To learn, one must be very eager and open to new information. Be ready to discard one idea to learn a subject better. Sometimes some old concepts that you have learned may be an obstacle to enhancing the horizon of understanding if you are not receptive. To become a good problem solver never hold on to a single method but be open to all possibilities.

Law, Science, Commerce, Arts

It is possible to clear CLAT, CUET, CPT, CSEET, etc exams without taking dedicated coaching classes, as these exams don’t involve intense problem solving like that of engineering entrance exams. Self-study, following exam preparation books, and solving problems regularly can help one clear these exams. Resources available on the internet are enough to clear these exams. Though students can opt for coaching for these exams also, but not very important.
Students who are aiming for state-level universities or colleges should target to get very good marks in class 12th exams, as based on these marks admission will be given. For BSc/BA/BC etc Honours/majors are allocated based on class 12th marks.

Now as you understand that based on your career choice you may have to clear one entrance test to study in your dream institute. So before finalizing the college you have to take into account the coaching requirement.

Choose a college for class 11-12th.

Engineering / Medical aspirants

You should college in a place where there are also good coaching institutes. Since you have to balance the time between your class 11-12th coursework and entrance preparation, it is important to have the college and coaching institute located in the same town/city.
Also prefer a college that doesn’t put very strict requirements of attendance, as in some cases if you don’t understand the teaching of a teacher you can skip his/her classes and utilize in some other works.

In the event of your constraints related to place or budget, if you are not able to enroll in an offline coaching institute, try enrolling in an online coaching institute or use internet resources to dedicatedly study for the entrance. Nowadays there are many high-quality free entrance preparation resources available on Youtube and the internet.

Law, Science, Commerce, Arts Aspirants

Since there is no dedicated requirement of coaching for these streams’ entrance examinations, a student can select the college based on the criteria listed above such as rank, teachers, infra, communication, etc.

Resources

What happens if you are unable to clear the entrance test on the first attempt

If you are unable to clear the respective entrance exams in your first attempt and you have completed your class 12 exams, you can go for offline and dedicated coaching for 12th pass students. A span of 8/10 months of dedicated problem solving can help you crack the entrance test.