Career counselling: questions and answers

Q1: Respected Mr Abidi, I passed FSc Pre-Medical with Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Sir, now I wish to study Information Technology (4-year BS programme). I request you to please advise me if I can take admission without a test of additional math and which universities are offering this programme in Lahore? (Anika Dilawar Rana, Faisalabad)

Ans: Dear Miss Anika, please note that many private institutions in Lahore offer IT at bachelor’s level with different titles of BBA-IT and BS-IT.

However, it all depends on your objectives keeping in view a specific career.

Information Technology has a very wide scope and career prospects and I don’t think it requires too intensive Mathematics.

If you are interested in getting into a public sector university, I suggest you contact them directly for better advice. It all depends on a number of factors especially, the location of your house and the proximity that you require etc.

Q2: Sir, I have done DAE (3-year) in Electrical Engineering with a grade of 85%. Now I want to do Civil Engineering, Computer Science or Physics. Please suggest to me what is the best option for my career? (Jamal Karim Durrani, Multan)

Ans: Dear Mr Durrani, I would not advise you to enter into a completely new area of Civil Engineering after having done a 3-year DAE in Electrical. However, I think Computer Science is an area that can be connected to your current qualifications going forward. As you already have some knowledge related to Electrical and Electronic Systems, circuits and platforms, it would be more comfortable doing a degree in Computing Science or Computer Engineering and I guess you will be more successful. Both areas have enormous career prospects and you should be able to find relevant opportunities once you top up your DAE with such a degree.

Q3: Dear Mr Abidi, my sister passed her BSc last year. Her subjects were Chemistry, Botany & Zoology and she got 77% marks from GCUF. Now she wants to do an MSc in Chemistry. I want to have your expert advice as to what is the scope of MSc Chemistry and also which one is best MSc Chemistry vs MSc Biochemistry. (Mrs Asra Ghani, UAE)

Ans: Dear Mrs Asra, thank you for your email. My advice for your sister is to choose Biochemistry instead of Chemistry.

Biochemistry is a unique combination of the study of biological aspects that relate to the chemical changes and the effect of different drugs that further leads into the understanding of the human body.

Biochemistry has several specialisations and fields going forward and the possibility of getting funding for research in the areas of Microbiology, Pathology and Virology will open more career prospects for your sister.

Q4: Sir, I recently passed Bachelors of Biotechnology (BS) from the University of Central Punjab with 3.73 CGPA. I would appreciate your expert advice regarding career prospects of BS Biotechnology. (Qaiser Shafeeq Butt, Lahore)

Ans: Dear Qaiser, good to see you secured an excellent CGPA. It shows that you are a hardworking and intelligent person and I'm confident that you will do well in future studies and goal plans. Biotechnology is a very emerging and upcoming subject area that offers several specialisations which are constantly changing due to rapid advancement in this field; therefore, there may be several postgraduate and specialisations you can choose from. I would recommend you to have a full counselling session so that I can guide you in the right direction and give you a workable road map of the study.

(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).