Commerce has been increasing in popularity year on year

With the Class 10 and Class 12 results out, students are making their first major decision selecting streams which will shape their career paths. Careers in engineering, medical and pharmacy are well known and remain popular, but commerce has been increasing in popularity year on year.

Some of the toppers in the CBSE and ICSE streams, for instance, were from commerce and humanities.The reasons for this are plenty. These include the saturation of traditionally popular fields and the widespread shift in mindset about the scope, respect, and money involved in careers in the commerce stream.

According to experts, students are better informed as they speak to parents, peers, seniors, career counsellors, and conduct their research online to find streams which match their interests and capabilities. Students have begun to broaden their horizons, starting with commerce based professions like CA, CS, CFA, and stockbroking. “Based on the GDP growth rate and increase in individual wealth, more opportunities will come in the financial services, investment banking, brokerage, and wealth planning, and traditional business management areas,” said Dr Srini Bhupalam an educationist.

He said commerce was the second most popular stream and this was further subdivided into Chartered Accountancy (CA), Cost and Work Accountancy (ICWA), Certified Financial Analyst and Company Secretaryship, financial banking, insurance, investments, equity research analyst, investment banker.The scope is vast, an expert said. This includes venture capitalist business management, human resource management, international business management, market research, retail management.Other growing areas were marketing and sales management, technology management, operation and logistics, export management. Besides, there are fields like material management, financial management and business development management.

Mr Rajshekhar Ratrey, VP, content education, Toppr.com said, ‘’Commerce is not just limited to BCom and MCom. The growth of industries, start-ups, and MNCs across the world has broadened the scope of commerce.”He said that over the past decade, Hyderabad has attracted many MNCs and IT companies like Google, Amazon, Deloitte, Micro-soft, TCS. Compa-nies like GVK and Dr. Reddy’s are based in Hyderabad. “This has created job opportunities in various fields, attracting applicants from all over India,” Mr Ratrey said,