Specialised courses more in demand
A large number of students have shifted from the basic courses of science, commerce and arts to specialised, professional courses like Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Finance (BAF), Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS), Bachelor of Finance Management (BFM) and Bachelor of Mass Media (BMM). College authorities believe the students’ perspective of selecting subjects and opting for courses has changed with the changing trends.
The mindset of the students has changed as they are more interested in doing specialised courses keeping an eye on career prospects or self-financing programmes which will help them in the future.
Arya Thakur, Principal of Mittal College, said, “There is an increase in demand for courses such as BAF, BMS, hospitality and especially BMM.
While, the demand for BSc (Information Technology) has shown a decline in the last five years.”
The number of students opting for the commerce stream is also high as compared to science and arts. Parag Ajagaonkar, Principal of Narsee Monjee College, said, “The number of students opting for commerce stream is always more compared to other courses. But due to the availability of a large number of opportunities students opt for self-financing programmes as they get wide exposure for their career ahead.”
Students opt for these selffinancing courses due to new career opportunities. Ayushi Mehta, a student, said, “Courses like BMM, BAF, Actuarial science and Life Science have many opportunities which we were not aware of earlier. We get a chance to practically try out our skills and then select our career.”
While another student said, “Opting for BFM is better than going for the normal commerce course has that course involves more focussed programmes and learning opportunities in finance management.”
Most of the students coming from other cities prefer opting for specialised courses as they plan on pursuing MBA (Master of Business Administration) after completing a three-year degree course.
Aditya Sharma, a student from Chhattisgarh, said, “I want to pursue the bachelor’s degree in management studies so that I can strengthen my base for the MBA course that I intend on doing in the future.”
Also, there are a wide variety of certificate courses offered by many private institutes like finance, travel and tourism, advertising, business management, export and import management, geology, biotechnology, microbiology, literature, psychology and economics that the students are keen about.