Counselify — A Career Building 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 3205 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. Counselify 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.
Why Counselify?
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.
Core Issued of Young Minds:
As mentioned above, the students of matric and intermediate in Pakistan face multiple issues due to lack of proper career counseling. Some of the issues researched by our mega circle are:
i. Unclear education goals
ii. Academic stress
iii. Lack of motivation
iv. Low academic expectations
v. Financial constraints
vi. Unable to realize the potential
Features of Counselify:
This app will work on these core issues faced by the young minds of our country. We will provide the admission guideline to the targeted audience. This guidance will include the admission policy of a college/university, Historical background of that institution, previous year merit list, degrees offered and uniqueness of that institution. This app will also provide assistance in career planning through the detailed instructions of a particular degree, its scope and the things to do to check whether that degree is the cup of tea of a student or not.
There is another section in the App for study tips. This session includes the videos, columns and blogs of researchers and educational specialists regarding how to study smart and wisely. There will also be the notes making techniques in the app.
Through the webinars, the students will be able to hear from the mouths of the subject specialists about the particular degree or program. There will also be the questions session in the webinar. There is another option of contacting the Alumni of a particular university for assistance.
Choosing your Dream College:
As Bill Cosby said, ”There is a time and place of everything and it’s called college”. So, one should wisely plan and choose that ‘time’ and ‘place’. College is the ladder that defines your way towards your professional career and degree.
Most of our students opt for their elective subjects of the intermediate by just following someone or by the advice of their parents or teachers. In some cases, it is also seen that students are forced by their parents to choose their careers according to their choice. This happens only because the students are too young to judge their interests and follow the paths marked by someone else and years after they realize that they have been following the path in which they have no interest and if they had chosen any other career, they would have excelled excel themselves much better.
To overcome this hurdle and problem faced by students, we aim to have a feature of our App called ‘Choosing your Dream College”. In this section, students will be allowed to go through some quizzes and then according to their performance in those quizzes, we’ll give them guidance to choose the path which suits their mental psychology. We will also be arranging online sessions on different career options and their scope in Pakistan with alumni of that specific field in which students will be allowed to ask questions to clear all the queries in their mind and they will be provided with feedback.
Choosing your Dream University:
As someone aptly said, “University is the beginning of anything you want”. So, this beginning should be well defined and aligned according to one’s interests and goals in life. University is not just like college, rather it serves many other purposes other than imparting knowledge. It teaches you maturity, professionalism and guides you to the way of your dream. So, in choosing a university, intensive care and attention are needed.
Many of our students, after doing their intermediate, find two options before themselves. They either want to become an engineer or a doctor. They neglect all other fields, one of which might be of their interest. Another important and serious problem arises when they unknowingly do not apply for admission to a university, they wanted to join, just because of not knowing about the dates of admission application for that university.
To overcome this and all other problems, we plan to guide intermediate students of intermediate with the complete information of universities in Pakistan with their admission procedures and expected dates of entry tests and procedure of application submission. Students will also be provided with help in making references while selecting the field of their choice and we will also be arranging online sessions on different career options and their scope in Pakistan with alumni of that specific field in which students will be allowed to ask questions to clear all the queries in their mind and they will be provided with feedback.
Online Sessions:
Our app will provide online career guidance sessions. The initial plan is to link famous counselors’ videos from You Tube. After getting some audience we will move to hold live sessions by having some career counselors and motivational speakers. This will allow students to gain some motivation about their careers ahead as well as they will get broader about career choices and available fields.
Contact Alumni:
One of the best ways for beginning with anything is to seek advice from those who have passed through that phase. Alumni have already cracked this phase of their career, so they will be able to give advice to students based on their experiences as well as market trends.
Also, it is considered to be a good idea to learn from the mistakes of others and make the best decisions for your life. Because a wrong choice of study field can cause a minimum of a year’s loss. Our app will provide students the facility to chat with alumni and seek guidance. Through this, students will be able to get their queries resolved along with they will also gain motivation because students will feel more connected with alumni.
Reaching the Students:
The students of matric and intermediate will be able to reach us by knowing about this app through the various sources. Maria Moman is the Social Media Manager of this app. She is handling the Facebook and Instagram pages of this app. All the circle fellows are advised to send 2–3 posts related to this app to Maria, so that she may post on social media. We are also planning to take help from paid advertisements on social media.
Our social media links are:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/counselify/?ref=pages_you_manage
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/counselify/
This app will be introduced in the schools, colleges and universities through our fellows and their links. We will also try to have the seminars and information desks of this app in the schools and colleges. We will contact the administrations and societies of different institutions for this purpose.
The regular webinars on Zoom App will also help to boost the audience of this app. We will try to invite the subject specialists and their own social circle will help in attracting the audience of this app.
Finances of App:
This question has the weightage due to the fact that all the members of this team are students and depend on their parents for the financial support. The expenses of the app development like the payment to app developer and payment for play store are equally divided among the members.
In order to improve the app there is always the need for financial assistance. We have decided to reach the academies, educational institutions, book stores, book publishers and such other educational businesses to have advertisements on our app. This thing will help in generating the revenue for more effective and efficient working of this app.
Our Team Efforts So For:
Our mega circle has experienced a friendly environment of coordination in recent days. Almost all group members have their participation in writing the contents of this blog. As the final days are approaching, the coordination of our circle is increasing. Each of the members is contributing to this project with energy and time. Maria is dealing with social media to promote this app. Murtaza is getting data on the admissions of the different colleges for this app. Sadeem is collecting data regarding the different degrees and their scope. Maryam is helping us through the smart study section’s data collection. Arslan is collecting data related to admission tests and also collaborating with UI designer alongwith app developer. Saeed is a bit busy but we hope he will also join us soon. Ayesha Tanvir is a good addition to our mega circle as UI designer. We are thankful to her for her dedicated work.
In this way, we are enjoying the teamwork. This thing is also helping us to improve our coordination skills. This is also helping us to polish our team working skills.
Progress of App:
The app is in the final phase. Ayesha is almost finished with the UI design of the app. The app developer has also worked almost 90 percent on the app. We have high hopes that this app will be done before the end of next week. We are also ambitious to have this app on google play store.
Challenges Faced and Way Ahead:
In the last two weeks we have experienced a number of challenges. We were facing the challenges of the UI design. We reached a professional UI designer and he asked $200 for his services. Due to financial constraints, we used to think of alternative ways. We then decided to reach our Amal fellow, Ayesha Tanvir. She is so kind to provide us with our services absolutely free of cost. We also faced the challenge of data collection. But all the members are working quite well to collect the relevant data.
Now, we have a number of challenges in our way. We have to attract the audience for this app. We are working on ways to attract the target audience. Maria is helping us through the social media drive to attract the targeted audience. There is also a challenge to have Alumni on this app for assistance. We are trying to contact our friends and fellows to volunteer for the counseling on the app. We also have to conduct webinars. For this, we are trying to contact the subject specialists for guest speakers. I hope we will find the guests who will participate voluntarily. We also have to reach the schools and colleges for the app. For this, we are busy developing the mechanism to reach the schools and colleges. We also have to reach the educational institutions, academies and bookstores to advertise on our app. In this regard we are also trying to have a solid policy on this matter.
Conclusion:
We are ambitious for the progress of this app. We are hopeful that this app will prove a good platform for this targeted audience. We are of the belief that this app will be a good service to our nation and society. This blog ends with the hope that this mega project will prove a good addition to the education sector in Pakistan.
