Career counselling; questions and answers

Q1: I have done BCom and I have three years of work experience in retail sector in Pakistan markets. Now I am planning to get Master's degree in Supply Chain Management (SCM). Is it a right decision for me to get degree in this field. Please guide with your expert opinion. (Zahid Anwar - Lahore)Ans: You are right on the spot in terms of your career selection as well as the relationship with your current position and job profile. SCM will greatly help you to expand and enhance your career prospects especially if you continue to engage in huge franchise whether household or food chains. A degree in SCM from a foreign country/ good university will give a slightly better edge. 

Q2: My brother has recently done Mechatronic Engineering (Robotics) with aggregate GPA 2.54. 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 2.54. (Ali Murtaza - Islamabad)

Ans: I suggest that your brother should work for a few years in the industry and gain some experience before getting into a management degree such as MBA. It is important at this stage to get the practical experience of industry and machines and apply the knowledge and move forward.

Q3: I want to take your precious advice regarding my career. I have given my final exams of electronic engineering and waiting for my results. Please guide me what should I study now? MS or MBA or other and which one you think is the best? Kindly guide me. (Zahid Muzzafar - Lahore)

Ans: You have two clear options leading to an MS after which I would suggest you to work for few years and then look at doing a management course such as MBA. With your current background I would recommend that you do a PG 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.

Q4: My son did BE in Telecom Engineering with 2.49 GPA. He did his Master's in Engineering Management from UK in 2013. Presently he is engaged with me to look after my small scale software development related company. He intends to do PhD in Disaster Management. Please advise what we should do?  (Anwar Raza - Karachi)

Ans: Since your son is already qualified engineer with a very good top up master’s degree in engineering management I would have advised him to work in the industry for few years before looking at doing 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.

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