Issue 16

Career development is a processthroughout the students’ educationaljourney of self-assessment, careerexploration, making life changingdecisions and implementing it. CareerDevelopment of students, long termengagement with the Industry andplacements of students for internshipsand final jobs is an important process in Ahmedabad University. The Career Development Centre at Ahmedabad University builds and nurture industry engagement and provide services, re-sources & experiences to its Students and faculty which helps them achieve their academic & career goals.

The Centre helps the students in taking informed decisions about majors or careers, and guides them to have a clear goal and provides guid-ance and assistance in reaching it. The center provides facility for Aptitude, Career and Psychometric Test to helpstudents identify their skill and com-petencies. This in turn is used to helpstudents work on their areas of devel-opment.

We at the Centre have been using the

Pearson’s My Choice My Future(MCMF) self-assessment tool. MCMFmaps an individual’s dominant per-sonality traits to suitable career clus-ters. This has helped us to guide thestudents to understand their person-ality better and to make an informedcareer choice. It has been very helpfulin career counselling and helping thestudents prepare their Individual De-velopment Plan [IDP]. It also helps toidentify the key development areas ofa student to perform better.

The Career Development Centre hastrained Career Counsellors who designa comprehensive, developmental pro-gram to assist students in making andimplementing informed educationaland occupational choices. A structuredcareer guidance and counselling pro-gram develops a student’s competen-cies in self-knowledge, educationaland occupational exploration, andcareer planning. Career guidance andcounselling helps students acquire theknowledge, skills, and experience nec-essary to identify options, explorealternatives and succeed in society

In the beginning of the program the

Importance of Career Development - Renu Misra Director - Career Development & Industry Engagement, Ahmedabad University

students undertake the MCMF test,based on the results and the inputs from the career counselling session, they prepare their IDP. The student monitors his / her development jour-ney with the help of their faculty mentor.

An IDP is a tool that helps students, assess their current skills and strengths, create a plan for developing and enhancing skills to help meet their academic and professional goals and communicate with their mentors about their goals and related skills

IDP is essentially a planning document that identifies what ones goals and objectives are for the upcoming year.

The purpose of an IDP is twofold. First, it ensures that the students maintains the current level of proficiency through continued learning and devel-opmental activities. Secondly, the stu-dent charts a career path by identify-ing new knowledge, skills and abilities to pursue, as well as learning activities needed to reach the established goals.

The best goals are specific, measur-able, achievable, relevant, and timely. Setting goals can helps an individual be more intentional about the experi-ences one has in their graduate edu-cation and training, and can provide key steps in the right direction to the individual.

Illustration credit - Lauren Rolwing

Ms Kapur is a practising Clinical Psy-chologist at the Unlimited Potentiali-ties Clinic, Mumbai, assisting Dr Ashit Sheth for the last 30 years. She is also attached to Hindustan Unilever Indus-tries in the capacity of their chief Psy-chologist and Counsellor as part of their Employee Outreach Programme. She is also a member of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists. A graduate of the renowned St. Xavi-er's College, Mumbai, she graduated at the top of the class in 1986, follow-ing which she went on to pursue a Masters with a specialization in Clinical Psychology from Mumbai University. She also worked at the J.J Hospital and K.E.M Hospital, Mumbai. She interned at St. Thomas Hospital and the Toot-ing Bec Residential Psychiatric Facility , London and worked in their various departments right from those dealing with Psychiatric Illnesses to Drug and Alcohol Addiction to Child and Geriat-ric Mental Healthcare at which point she realised the need for a multidisci-plinary approach for individuals re-quiring psychiatric care and has since incorporated this approach in her clin-ical practice working closely with the concerned psychiatrist, family

members and other mental health professionals to facilitate better treat-ment outcome for the patients.

On returning to India, she worked at the Bombay Hospital Psychiatric De-partment. This provided her with ex-posure to a wide range of psychiatric illnesses from Schizophrenia, Depres-sion, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Anxiety and Panic Disorders from the onset of her practice.

She then went on to join the Unlimited Potentialities Clinic, Mumbai and has since worked in private practice assist-ing Dr Ashit Sheth one of the senior-most psychiatric practioner's in Mumbai with a wide and extensive practice, for the last three decades. She trained in Neuropsychological evaluation and rehabilitation at the NIMHANS Institute, Bangalore and has since been assessing the role of Cogni-tive functions especially Executive functions in various psychiatric disor-ders especially Attention Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder (ADHD).

She has conducted workshops on "Di-agnosis of Learning Disabilities and Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity

Professional of the monthMs Anupama KapurClinical Psychologist

Disorder" with a view to educating teachers regarding the need for early and correct diagnosis leading to early intervention resulting in a better out-come and prognosis for the child.

With her 30 years of experience, she believes that a step by step approach which starts with detailed case history taking, followed by a complete psycho-metric evaluation which leads to an accurate diagnosis is important to ef-fective intervention and treatment and better prognosis for the patient. In cases where there is a question such as making decisions regarding differ-ential diagnoses or whether there is an effective component in conjunction with a thought disorder benefit greatly from a thorough psychometric assess-ment supported by clinical observa-tion. The concerted effort is not to label the patient but to use assess-ment to treat the patient, a means to an end.

Assessment and evaluations for all areas such as Personality, Intelligence, Memory and Cognitive functions are

her main area of interest and has been supported for the same by Dr Ashit Sheth who introduced and en-couraged the use of psychometric evaluations and assessment measures such as the MMPI when these were little known and used in India.

Though diagnostics and assessment have been her major forte and area of interest she has effectively and exten-sively practised Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Rational Emotive Behav-ioral Therapy in dealing with various psychiatric illnesses especially De-pression, Anxiety and Panic Disorders.

She has also developed a comprehen-sive step by step programme aimed at helping people develop skills to deal/cope with Attention Deficit / Hy-peractivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) which has benefited many people.

Her mantra is "Correct assessment leads to correct diagnosis leading to correct treatment.

You can reach out to her at akapur66@gmail.com or manamantra@gmail.com

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