Last Updated on: September 11, 2022
You finished your school, rolled into three to four years of the conventional semesters, flew high with graduation caps and rolled degrees in your hand. The journey to your professionalism starts with on the edge of your convocation day. Coming to the point of its effectiveness in finding you the right job, how far does the glass fill?
In a world where it is time for a digital economy, degree-based hiring is relevant but not sufficient in the present job market scenario. People are looking more towards competitive based hiring, where getting a degree is not enough, you are expected to acquire skills necessary to fit into the role more than anything.
In a world of glasses being half empty or half full, Online courses fill the glass as much as exactly required without spilling out redundant effort, time and money.
Table of Contents
What are Professional Courses?
Professional courses are specialised courses that involve teaching industry-specific skills or skills that help students further their career in a particular field. The successful completion of a professional course ensures that students have the necessary expertise and soft skills for a specific job or field. These courses differ from degree courses that provide students with a solid academic foundation and expertise in a specific area. Professional courses help students learn the necessary soft skills, while encouraging innovation and self-improvement.
What is the Difference Between Professional Courses and Regular Courses?
Students often get confused about the difference between regular courses and professional courses. Regular courses refer to the more generic graduation courses in the fields of science, commerce, and humanities. These courses can be pursued by anyone after completing Class 12. While regular courses may help lay an academic foundation, they are not adequate for building a career and need to be followed by a master’s degree. In contrast, professional degrees offer specialised and career-specific guidance to students.
Professional courses are now in higher demand, as jobs have become increasingly specialised, thanks to technological advancements. Also, such courses, especially online professional courses, can be pursued while continuing with further education or working full time.
| Professional Courses | Regular / Degree Courses |
| Enough for building a career | Need to be followed up with further education |
| Covers skills in a specific field | Covers a specific subject matter |
| A little costlier | A little cheaper |
| Can pursue online professional courses | Usually on premise |
| Can be completed alongside other courses or job | Usually needs students to be dedicatedly pursing it |
Top Reasons Why Online Professional Courses are Important for You
In today’s competitive world, students need to develop special skills and acquire specialised knowledge and education to build a successful career. This is made possible by professional courses. Some advantages of professional courses are:
Keeps You Abreast of the Latest Developments
A professional course keeps you up to date with the latest happenings, developments and innovations in the specific field. The curriculum of these courses is designed to familiarise students with the functioning of a particular domain as well as the challenges associated with it. The successful completion of a professional course, whether online or offline, prepares you to work and excel in the field.
Sets You Apart from Others
A major benefit of professional courses is that they prepare you to thrive amid high competition by enhancing your knowledge of real-world scenarios and the ways to deal with them. Professional course students learn new concepts, while getting the opportunity for practical experience too. This sets them apart from students who have opted for regular courses and are exposed only to textbook knowledge. Professional courses allow students to be much more creative and adopt an innovative approach to deal with different situations that may arise during their work in the future.
Specialised Knowledge Promotes Better Contributions
The specialised knowledge gained from a professional course is useful for performing your job in a much more efficient manner. The constant learning and interaction in such courses ensure that students are well-equipped to face challenges with greater confidence, perform their jobs more effectively and deal with different kinds of situations with a problem-solving approach.
Have a Professional Approach
There are online professional courses in India that teach students the art of dealing with different stakeholders. They help you understand the bigger picture, so you can interact with all stakeholders (superiors, subordinates, customers, vendors and business partners) in a calm way, while understanding their requirements and conveying your message politely, but clearly.
Active Advantages Of Professional Courses Over Conventional Ones:
1. Keeps you in competition at par with market standards:
Conventional courses warm the bonfire from every side. They are like free size dresses available in the market, not concerned about any particular customer, expecting people to get it tailored according to the fit. It fills the purpose and doesn’t fill the purpose at the same time. For mastering a professional role, it is not sufficient to manage surface-level skills. It may help you enter the sea, without incubating you with the swimming skill which is required to sustain in the water and competition. A professional short term course provides you with the required edge, which makes you stand out. The modules they provide power you with the flair and requirements of the job role in the corporate.
2. Enhances your Employability:
If you are studying Engineering, college teaches you about organisational behaviour and Maslow’s hierarchy theory but rarely takes you through how to take on a scrum master role or niches of product managers and their contribution towards the organisation.
Practically speaking, of all the knowledge you have acquired, you hardly use quantum physics on a day to day basis if you are not into the pro-scientific-zone work environment.
These tiny online professional courses provide you with an opportunity to grab the depths into “what-whys-hows of live corporates”, and you master the skills hands-on.
3. They encapsulate all-in-one and make you focussed:
When your knowledge is spread in all directions, and you are hired for a job role in any organisation, they need your expertise exactly at the focus of the principal axis like the rule of lenses.
You cannot afford to be the jack of all trades and master of some. These privileged online professional courses make you the “master of one.”
They align the trajectories and you are efficient in the skill you require at the time to excel in your job role. Doing an online course certification validates your throughput and fills the hirer into the assurance that you know your job quite above the rest of the conventional mass.
4. You contribute more to the workplace:
Imagine your coworkers struggling with the considerable fundamentals, you will always find yourself above the threshold.
When you enter an organisation with a professional course, though you will be a newbie to the firm, you are entering into the business with much knowledge under the scarfs which will help you in understanding your work, business much faster and easier. You won’t take too much time in gaining the momentum to reach your maximum efficiency at work.
5. You garner personalised creativity at work:
Conventional studies teach you how to do ten things in one way, but custom- built courses teach you how to do one thing in ten different ways. When you know how to do one thing in ten different ways, your approach to handling new estimates will come up with a different versatility, where you know how to take up a thing differently. You can play a little bit here and there without affecting the output adding to the creativity. At the end of the day, your efficiency at work is going to get highlighted in a different tunnel altogether.
Top Professional Courses in India
The right professional course can propel your career, while an inappropriate one may result in a huge waste of time. Here’s a look at the top offline and online professional courses in India. You can choose the one that matches your interests and abilities.
Data Science Architect Program
Data science is an emerging field that has found application across industries and segments. The demand for data science specialists is booming and there are attractive job opportunities. GeekLurn’s Data Science Architect Program includes more than 320 hours of live interactive sessions with data science experts and experience on real-world projects. The admission to this two-year program does not require you to clear any entrance exam and is open to students from all streams. The program not only provides an insight into all aspects of data science, but also offers a 100% job guarantee. The inclusion of the 18 months of sponsored project work provides hands-on knowledge and experience which go a long way in advancing your career in the data science field.
BBA and MBA
Management degrees have emerged as popular degrees for students who are interested in the aspects of running an organisation. While BBA is done after completion of Class 12, MBA can be pursued only after completing a graduate degree or a professional course. The successful completion of these courses can help you get a job in any field or industry because management is an integral part of all organisations. While BBA is a graduation degree, the master’s degrees in management include MBA (Master of Business Administration) and MPA (Master of Public Administration).
For admission to the master’s degrees, you need to clear entrance exams like CAT, XAT, CMAT, NMAT, MAT, ATMA, and many more.
Engineering Degrees
These professional degrees involve the application of mathematics, empirical evidence, and scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge for invention, innovation, design, building, and maintenance of structures, machines, tools, systems, and processes. Highly respected and among the most popular career options in India, the engineering area is open for students who have completed their Class 12 with science as the chosen stream.
Engineering degrees are regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). This area offers students a chance to choose degrees like Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.), Bachelor’s in Technology (B.Tech), or Bachelor in Architecture (B. Arch). The successful completion of these degrees can be followed up by a master’s degree like the M.E., M.Tech and M. Arch.
Admission to the bachelor’s degrees is possible after successful completion of Class 12 examination (subject to the minimum marks requirements) and the clearance of engineering entrance exams like JEE Mains, JEE Advanced, BITSAT, VITEEE, COMEDK-UGET, KEAM, KCET, IPUCET, NATA, MHTCET, WBJEE, UPSEE and many more. Admission to the Master’s courses is possible only after the successful completion of the bachelor’s degree. Some of them have their own entrance exams.
Certified Agile Product Manager & Product Owner
Another professional course that will interest people looking to make a career in project management is GeekLurn’s Certified Agile Product Manager & Product Owner course. The prerequisites for this course include good communication skills, experience in Scrum and project management skills. The course includes live interactive sessions and real projects that train you in Agile project management. On successful completion of this course, participants are well equipped to use Agile for the formulation, procedure and execution of a project.
Computer Applications
Another popular career path is the study of computer applications with the BCA and MCA degrees. The ever-evolving nature of the IT industry and its widespread usage have made this segment of education among the most popular options. Students can study computer applications by joining a bachelor’s degree and following it up with a master’s degree. The curriculum includes database, networking, data structure, and a study of core programming languages. The successful completion of these professional courses helps students build a career as a software programmer, developer, or engineer.
Admission to these courses is possible after the successful completion of Class 12 and clearing of entrance examinations. Some universities or professional institutes consider the Class 12 marks alone.
Certified Full Stack Web Developer
The demand for web developers is expected to remain elevated, with growing dependence on the internet. Students and professionals looking to enhance their skills can choose professional web development courses. GeekLurn’s Certified Full Stack Web Developer course is for anyone wanting to learn coding languages like Java, HTML and CSS to build websites and enhance the usability of products and services. The full stack web development course includes online and offline sessions, besides exposure to real-time projects. The institute also offers placement assistance to all its students.
Designing: Fashion, Web, and Interior
Design plays an important role in the creation or construction of a new product, object or system. Students with a creative bent of mind and key interests in designing and creating new things can choose professional courses in design. The available options include fashion designing, web designing, and interior designing. Some essentials of these professional courses are the ability to think out of the box, research, innovate and present to a group of stakeholders.
The options available in this segment are:
- Fashion Designing: The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and the National Institute of Design (NID) are the most prominent institutes offering fashion design courses. Upon completion of these courses, you can work in a fashion house or start your own design studio.
- Interior Designing: This involves designing the interiors and exteriors of a home or office to enhance the aesthetics.
- Graphic Designing: This involves visual communication and problem-solving by using space, images, typography, and colours. Graphic designers use various methods to create and combine words, symbols, and images to represent ideas and messages.
If you are interested in the field of design and are a creative person, you can choose to study Bachelor of Design (B. Des) with specialisation options in interior design, fashion design, graphic design, game design, multimedia design, and textile design. Several institutes offer professional courses in design to students who have completed their Class 12. Many of these need you to clear an entrance exam.
Mass Communication and Journalism
Media is a powerful tool to reach out to the public, which is why professional courses in mass communication and journalism have become popular. These courses educate students about how to reach out to the target audience through powerful news and information and impact their emotions, opinions, and attitude. The growing power of the internet has changed the way we communicate, leading to the continuous evolution of this field. The four major study areas in this field are Advertising, Broadcasting, Journalism, and Public Relations. Courses such as Bachelor of Journalism and Mass Communication are suitable for students wishing to make a career in public relations, correspondent, editor, and other aspects of journalism. These courses can be done after completing the Class 12 exams.
Hospitality Segment
Students interested in making a career in the hospitality segment and looking for jobs in hotels, resorts, and restaurants can choose professional courses in hotel management. Admission to the Bachelor’s Degree in Hotel Management and Catering (BDHMC) requires students to complete their Class 12 exams and clear the entrance examinations. NCHMCT JEE, AIMA UGAT, and AIHMCT WAT are the top entrance exams for hotel management courses.
MBBS and BDS
Medicine is a noble profession and involves diagnosing and treating patients. A doctor’s degree is one of the most prestigious in India and anyone who is passionate about the field of medicine and aims to help the sick can choose these courses. Admission to medical courses is very tough and through the merit list of the NEET examination. Students can seek admission in MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery), Bachelor of Dental Sciences (BDS), Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS), or Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS). Students can specialise in various fields of medicine after completing their bachelor’s degrees.
Finance and Accounting
Finance is an integral part of our lives, and its study deals with investment and money management. The study of finance helps students understand the nitty-gritty of dealing with money and investing it wisely for wealth creation and unlocking value in an organisation. Professional finance courses include the study of planning, raising funds, controlling costs, and making investments to generate good returns. Students interested in this area can go for a bachelor’s degree in finance and follow it up with an MBA in Finance. Students can also enrol in professional courses like Chartered Accountancy (CA), Cost Accountancy or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Once students complete these courses and clear all levels of the exams, they need to get the membership of the respective institutes – ICAI and ICMAI. The successful completion of these courses opens up job opportunities in several areas like banks, corporates, auditing firms, legal organizations, copyright registers, stock broking, investment banking, and mutual funds.
Psychology and Sociology
The study of psychology and sociology helps students understand the relationships, behaviours, and emotions of people in a better way. While psychology is the study of human behaviour, sociology involves the study of societal behaviour. The growing stress and competition and increased aggressiveness in people’s behaviour have boosted the demand for counselling and behavioural therapists with specialisations in different areas.
Law
Law refers to the enforcement of rules to ensure that society and people behave in the desired manner. Students interested in this field can choose professional law degrees. The admission to law courses takes place through entrance examinations like CLAT and can be followed up by specialisations in the areas of Civil, Criminal and Corporate Laws. Upon successful completion of the law degree, you get to work with law firms and practice as a lawyer in the courtroom. Students can opt for a five-year BA-LLB degree after completing the Class 12 exam and clearing the CLAT examination or choosing an LLB program after completing their bachelor’s degree.
Education
Teaching is a noble profession that builds the base of all other professions. Students who have the zeal to impart their knowledge can enrol in education courses like Bachelor’s in Education (B.Ed) and follow it up with a Master’s in Education (M.Ed). Enrollment in B.Ed courses is possible after the completion of a bachelor’s degree in Arts, Science, or Commerce with a minimum of 50% marks, plus passing the entrance exams conducted by different universities and educational bodies.
Pharmacy
Another professional course for students interested in the field of science is the area of pharmacy, which involves the science and techniques of preparing and dispensing drugs. These courses are an excellent option for students interested in the field of medical research and development. Pharmacists play a key role in research, testing, analysis for side effects and impact, formulation of prescription guidelines, drug dispensing, medical management, and overall healthcare programming. Some of the important pharma institutes in India include The National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Mohali and The Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. Eligibility for a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy includes completion of Class 12 with science subjects and clearance of entrance examinations.
Travel and Tourism Management
Another interesting option for students to pursue after completion of their Class 12 exams is the courses in travel and tourism management. The Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management offers several professional courses for students interested in this area.
Admission to these courses is based on entrance examinations followed by group discussions and personal interview rounds.
Fine Arts
Fine Arts is a creative field that involves the development of art for aesthetics or beauty purposes. The areas covered include painting, music, sculpture, poetry, photography, video and film production, theatre, and dance with all of them being a medium of communicating or expressing feelings. Delhi College of Art offers several professional art courses for students who have completed their Class 12.
Nursing
Nurses are the backbone of the healthcare segment as they play an important role in ensuring that patients are well taken care of, with timely medicines and essential care provided. India is a leading provider of highly skilled nurses abroad and its nursing courses are quite good. To enrol in a nursing course, you need to be a science student. You can choose to study B.SC in Nursing followed by a specialisation in areas like medical surgical nursing, paediatric nursing, gynaecology, psychiatric, and community medicine nursing.
CONCLUSION:
As a result of increasing demand for Online courses, a lot of learning institutes are coming in the light to provide students with a platform with awaited modules and industry-led syllabus helping them to catch the match of corporates. We have discussed only the active advantages of these courses. In the next blog, we will see, apart from what is seen through the eyes, what passive plus points it adds to the student’s basket. Stay in tune.
Monica Swain
Monica is a senior marketing executive. Her skillsets consist of digital marketing and strategy, SEO, marketing analysis and more. She also has her expertise in writing various copies, including web, newsletters, e-books, social media, etc. But, it does not stop here. Her love for writing goes as far as doing poetry connecting science and life.
