Are we giving enough career advice to students?

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So I’m in my final year of study and suddenly it hits me, do I really want to do the course I’m pursuing. Problem is I can’t drop out since I’ve already gone through three years of university and spent so much money. What will my family think? Will I now be labeled a failure? These are the many thoughts that fill my head as a university student.

The problem with free will is that given one has the ability to make choices at any point in life sometimes you’ve traveled down a path far too long. It comes a time when your passion is a total contrast to what you had foreseen in your career path. In a previous article I talked about “a case for college dropouts” but in our African setting dropping out is not really an option – or maybe one is just to cowardly to. Anyways when you are caught up in this mid-life crisis you start wondering what your options are but that is a subject for another day.

So what leads to such a scenario with part of our university students. First of all, I believe the main issue is to be taken with our education system. We have a system that is technical subject driven and does not really put any focus to the talents that a student may have. There is no space left for children to explore more into their passions especially if it not technical related.

Secondly I feel that not much career advice is given especially for those deciding on which courses to pursue in university. With the JAB system one just applies to various “prestigious” degrees and hopes to make the cut off points. Rarely do public universities visit high schools and do amplitude or careers test to advice students on which courses would best suit them.

Lastly there is a gap between professionals and students in terms of mentorship programs to guide these students in deciding their paths in life. These to me are some of the problems that have to be handled so as to avoid scenarios where student are left in crisis in deciding what they want to do next in life.

Do you think that we are we giving enough career advice to students?