1.I am Shamna (a muslim girl) studying now in Grade 8 (London syllabus). I like to become an architectect in future so I want to know what subjects I should take for O/Ls & A/Ls.

Shamna Via Email
Dear Shamna,
I am thrilled at your early commitment to career planning, taking a closer look at what you like do, I feel your career related values can be categorized into the following areas:

1 Creativity
You can find some way of being creative whenever you have a supportive network. Some fields that are linked most closely with this value are teaching, advertising, marketing, art, public relations, and free-lance writing. And off course architecture

2. Prestige
It really depends on what you consider to be prestigious. Common stereotypical examples might be physician and attorney, but so many others have this quality, too!

3. Intellectual Challenge
Any job where you get to think about complex issues without worrying about making stockholders happy is a possible fit for this value. In the general work world, it is most typical in research & science and higher education. But it's present elsewhere, too.

You may need look for these areas as part of your value system if you want to make your career sustainable, for example you need to be creative and will want clients to seek you for unique design talent as well as challenge yourself to deliver innovatively on projects.

I don't see any flexibility in the subject selection at the O/L stage, however there may be some options available. At the A/L stage you may want to choose either commerce subjects or Arts subjects linked to your preference.

The institute of architects would help you get the required qualification plus there are other professional institutes offering options as well. It will take around seven years including concurrently gaining experience, costing you around rupees eight hundred thousand. Required qualification would be credits for Maths and English for O/L as well as A/L. First sit down and talk to an architect, who would guide you on the finer details.

If you have the passion to do it nothing should stop you.
Knowing what you want is the first step to success.

Dear Mr Sheriff,
Thank you for your kind thoughts. To help you out with the next few steps , You may need to look at a five point plan.

" Identify your vision and your path of study preference, this can be a work related qualification or a academic , for example he may need to look at what job profile is he looking to get at, example in research ,testing, new product development.

"Select the best fit course based on cost , time and recognition status, there are many well and less recognized qualifications , a simple web search will show you the options available in local universities and foreign universities offering bridging programmes ,as a policy I am unable to mention the institutions.

"Select the best based on research and advice from trusted relatives and experts in the feild
"Try to scan for job opportunities that would amplify the qualification
"Develop and action plan on how you are going to get about it.
All the best

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