Career Counseling App

Introduction:

Students of Matric and Intermediate find it difficult to choose the field of their passion due to lack of proper counseling. They are in the age when they have little exposure to the market trends. They also remain relatively less aware of the admission policies of their dream colleges and universities. This thing led them to join the crowd and blind follow the popular trends. Each year seventy to eighty thousand students appear in the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), in which only 3200 students get admission. Meanwhile the rest of the students see for the other options like reappear next year or get admission in another degree. This is the point when they see their journey by rewinding all their steps and reach to the conclusion that they were not guided properly. The Career Counseling App has the motive to become the torch bearer for such students to guide them in achieving their goals keeping in mind their potentials and abilities.

Free and Effective Counseling:

In this age of technology, it is necessary to get use of the digital platforms to help the students in a more effective way. The Matric and Intermediate students have smartphones. This App aims at benefiting such students. This App has the features through which he/she can choose the field of his/her interest by keeping in view the numerous factors such as market trends, scope of field, admission criteria, whether field matches his/her interests and abilities. This App will be available on the Google Play Store and Apple Apps Store. In this way, the students can be helped at first hand.

Features of Career Counseling App:

This app will provide an online platform for students all over Pakistan to provide guidance. This app will have the Alumni of different public and private sector universities for guidance. The prominent features of this app are:

1. Introduction of private and public universities and colleges in Pakistan.
2. Previous merit lists of departments of respective private and public universities and colleges in Pakistan.
3. Admission criteria.
4. One to one chat with Alumni of respective colleges and universities.
5. Online and recorded sessions of Professors and administration of different colleges and universities.
6. Link of Career counseling blogs, videos on YouTube and relevant activities.
7. User friendly
8. Free of cost

App in Progress:

The first step regarding this app had been taken in April this year. Now this app has been under completion. The group members have religiously followed the progress of the app. If I talk about the timeline of the App, this idea was given the soft touch on April 10, 2021. I contacted a professional App developer, Muhammed Saqib. We got the contract and I conveyed all of the group’s ideas to him. I also presented him with the basic sketch of this app. He started working on this App by then. On April 14, I had another meeting with Saqib regarding the progress in the development of the App. Our Circle had several meetings regarding the app.

Teamwork and App:

From the very first day, all the members are quite passionate about the App. All members have equally presented their efficient and unique ideas regarding this App. On April 10, we had distributed the work task regarding the App. I, Arslan Mehboob (Circle Leader) was assigned the task of contacting the App Developer and to contact the career counselors for the sessions in this app. Murtaza was assigned the task to go for the data collection regarding the Video Lectures of Career Counselors, Articles and ebooks regarding the Programs offered in Pakistan. Sadeem has been given the task of data collection of Colleges and Universities in Punjab and Gilgit Baltistan. Maryam has been tasked with Colleges and Universities in KPK, Islamabad and Azad Kashmir with good results and Environment. Saeed has been given the task of Colleges and Universities in Sindh and Balochistan. Maria is the Social Media Manager of the Mega Project.

All the members are submitting their work in my google drive. We will soon link this drive with the app for the access of the students to the data. This process is 70–80 percent complete. The App is in the final phase. I hope we will be able to have the app in the next two weeks.

Challenges Faced:

No promising work goes in the smooth direction. We have to take steps for the completion of the work. Same is the case of this App. There are a number of the challenges faced by our circle.

1. The very first challenge was to have a price efficient and professional App developer. This task was quite challenging as the prices of the professional app developers are quite high and out of the reach of the people like us. We resolved this by contacting a developer who is a student as well. He gave us the special discount as we are working for the students.
2. The second challenge was the features of the app. The above given features were decided by all of the team in 2 meetings.
3. The next challenge was the designing of the app to make it user friendly. I have contacted Saqib, App Developer, on various occasions and am still working with him for this task.
4. The collection of data of the colleges and universities is not easy. But the members are working quite well in this regard.
5. I have contacted 4 career counselors but they are not ready to have online sessions free of cost. We are still looking to address this challenge.

The Way Ahead:

In the coming couple of weeks, we will have the test trail of the app. I hope we will complete our assigned task till this time. Once we have the App, we will work for the betterment of the app in making it more user friendly. We have the plan to start the drive for the app to colleges and universities for the advertisement on the app. We have a plan to enhance the social media drive of this app.