Career Talk

Are there placement offers for B.A. students?

I’m a Class 11 student of Humanities. Can you tell me if there are placement offers for B.A. students?
Raunak

An Arts degree opens up a vast array of career choices and opportunities. You can enter into Public Sector Banks through examinations for Bank Probationary Officers. It is one of the highest entry-level job profiles for which an examination is conducted nationwide. Other Government jobs are in Central Secretariat, Railways and many more. They conduct separate entrance tests like UPSC, SSC CGL, Railway Exam and LIC.

If you’re good in communication, you can join a BPO as a Customer Service Associate or a Relationship Executive. Another option for Arts graduates with a great personality and outgoing character is Public Relations. This field offers great job prospects along with lucrative salaries. If you are good in writing, you can join any media house as a Sub-Editor or an Ad Agency as a Copywriter.

If you are interested in a particular subject, you can go for further specialization in that subject. For example, Psychology is recommended if you have an interest in working with people. A strong foundation in the understanding of human behaviour opens the career door to a variety of options including personnel work for a company, child development, counselling and law, just to name a few.

Still, getting a job with the Arts stream is not that easy. Because of the limited number of opportunities in this field, only the best lot get good jobs. So enter into the Arts stream only if you really like those subjects and can excel in that field. Also, if you are planning to take Arts because you do not want to study, then you are in the wrong stream! Rather, in this stream you should be self-motivated to study and need to work hard, since there is not much of pressure from faculty.

To better equip yourself for future challenges, think about combining your Arts degree with a career-oriented advanced degree. While Political Science, Philosophy and Psychology are excellent exercises for your mind muscle, they will be more marketable if you combine them with career-oriented fields such as public administration or personnel management.

Dr Vibha Gupta, a feature writer, is a Ph.D. in Mathematics from IIT Roorkee. Her book Careers: A Pathfinder and articles in various publications are an attempt to guide students in choosing a career according to their natural strengths, talents and skills.

Dr Vibha Gupta

Dr Vibha Gupta, a feature writer, is a Ph.D. in Mathematics from IIT Roorkee. Her book Careers: A Pathfinder and articles in various publications are an attempt to guide students in choosing a career according to their natural strengths, talents and skills.