Why students fail to proceed in universities?

Written By: Professor Akhzar Nazir

Being a professor at university level, where students are pursuing their professional degrees, I have been observing tons of personalities in every new session from years.
Profession is something that covers a lot of aspects while choosing, most important ones are interest and market. Hence, we think that a student is pursuing a particular degree keeping both in mind. But that’s not the realistic case. A lot of students discussing their disinterests in their degree, amaze me. They are dissatisfied with their own decisions.

But why? When you ask this question from ChatGPT or Meta AI you will be provided a list of issues to just read
and enjoy. And this is not going to solve your problems of course. However, I won’t rely on listing down issues from any source, but rather share my thoughts based on my experiences over time.
In most cases, I have seen students blaming their parents that they are forced to do the degree which they don’t want to do. To be honest I am not focusing on this argument here.

I am going to take along the example of the students who chose their field by their own will and yet failed to proceed in it.
If you ask me to tell only one issue which must be faced by a lot of students, even in the best universities of the world, in my view is Lack of mentorship. Let me quote an eye witnessed incident I came across. I saw 3 different students, meeting with a professor, whom
they considered their mentor. They asked, ‘Sir how should we further proceed in IT field’,. Every one of them got a different thinking on it. Their mentor did not list down the emerging
technologies like ChatGPT do. Similarly, when students asked their mentor what were their weaknesses which they needed to overcome, their mentor pointed separate issues to each student knowing their individual personalities and weaknesses.
Here, we come to know the importance of a human mentorship. You know ChatGPT may have some person specific data on general facts but still can’t provide separate mentorship to each student. It does not have real life experiences. Mentor don’t even know what your
recent searches on Google, still providing mentorship to all on individual basis.
I know many students in COMSATS Lahore who are finding a mentor from Industry as well, who can guide them according to their personalities, issues, strength and weaknesses but
industrialists are here to only list down the trending technologies same like ChatGPT or may be better.
As a teacher did you ever see any student sitting in your class, having best skills in Video editing or graphic designing, and is already hired by some best USA based company, earning in dollar yet has to sit in your Mobile App Dev or Web Dev class? Why? When even he doesn’t have any plan to opt Development field. Do you have any solution to this problem even in Harvard or MIT? If yes do let me know for my knowledge.
Hence, generally blaming parents on not giving liberty to choose your degree on your own choice of field in bachelors, is not fair. As the cases vary. I can show you many students who chose their fields by their own will but failed and many students praising their parents about saving their life for better guidance in their career.
The simple answer towards this argument is, sometimes you know better what the emerging trends are, and some times your parents know better, this is all about discussion with your parents about your future plans. Take some time and make casual talks with them. Tell them about the experiences of senior fellows and listen some from them. Don’t forget that your parents have known you since you didn’t even know yourself. So, choosing best field is not only picking the field what you love but a mixture of your love, suggestions by some mentors and your parents’ opinion about different fields.
In the big sea of above-mentioned issues, I can only suggest some tips which may help students to decrease some problems from the big list.

1- Education system should Increase the percentage of industry experts in University’s
teaching staff, giving them salaries accordingly.

2- Career coaches should recommend some Psychology or aptitude tests to know students
aptitude

3- A Panel with dynamic skills like one expert from IT Industry, One Teacher from University
who teach student for 1 semester at least, better is to pick the teacher suggest by student,
One Psychiatrist may be from University Dept or outside. You can add 1,2 more to it.

4- The panel can have interviews with each student after one year or once in a degree to
guide him better.

5- Teacher-students meetings, not for blaming students but to better discuss student’s
problems and solutions.