India has the highest proportion of female commercial pilots in the world at 12%*, while the global average is 5%*. It makes any Indian’s heart swell with pride to know we have our girls in a distinguished profession such as flying. It’s true that we still have many global benchmarks and rankings to improve, but as a nation we have never been more encouraging of our daughters. The success of our athletes at various sporting events is a great case in point.

*Source: https://in.reuters.com/article/india-pilots-women/india-soars-above-global-average-in-hiring-female-airline-pilots-idINKCN1LL0PB

Certainly, far from the days of teaching being the natural profession of choice for women, we have a growing appetite for offbeat careers. The progressing societal fabric and the ambition in girls are both to be credited for tasting success in newer arenas. If you too have harbored dreams of seeing your daughter, sister or loved kin have an astounding career, read this list of offbeat career choices they can have.

• Scuba Instructor

  Love for swimming can take someone places! That too under water! Scuba diving is a thriving career and not something limited by academics. There are many institutes in India offering the scuba instructor course. See here all the details. Globally, the gold standard in scuba is a certification called Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) originated at a California based institute. Many institutes offer PADI affiliated certifications now.

  It’s a career that comes with an active lifestyle and living life like a vacation.

• Pet grooming

  Pet love is seeing a new pursuit these days in the Pet grooming industry. From pampering sessions for furry family members to busy lifestyles leading to need of professional grooming, there are many reasons why demand for animal grooming services are growing. Key skills required would be passion and patience for working with animals, organizational and customer service skills. It’s not far when formal courses will spring up and make this profession common place. But for now, it’s a niche to groom and style a pet and women should take the advantage of that.

  Compare the falling rupee (from a low of 69.6 to a high of 72.9) to the share market price of Infosys for the same period.

• Community Management

  Community Management stems from the fact that brands today want to engage with customers. They don’t want just posts and reactions on social media from fans. Instead be a part of close knit group where multitudes of customers participate and engage in a more one on one way. A community manager’s role thus becomes important to run an e-community and be a part of many members’ day to day life. Familiarity and experience of social media is a must, along with communication skills and promptness in responding to members. Creativity in content and imagination is a definite plus to be a community manager.

  The opportunity is only getting bigger with social media reach and being comfortable in vernacular will take your prospects very high. Girls can excel in the job since they are high on Emotional Quotient.

• E-Sports

  For the gaming wizards, E-sports is a boon. They can make careers out of their passion. E-sports are organized, advanced level multi player video game competitions played between professionals. Once unknown, E-Sports now has a niche following and has many international leagues and championships around it. Its already in news for a possible inclusion in the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.

• Sculptor

  Being a sculptor may not be a new career but it’s definitely not main stream. For art lovers, sculpting is as creative as it gets. Professionally, it can also open up doors to many things like art curation and museum management. A degree in fine arts and practice is required to start out.

  With growing travel culture, governments are investing in up keep of city museums and historical sites which requires art professionals. Life size installations are done often to raise awareness or simply for beautification, which requires expert Sculptors.

As we encourage the girls to go out and make a mark for themselves, we have one more critical job at hand – ensuring that we can meet financial demands required to make offbeat careers. The early we start the better. Starting a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) in a suitable mutual fund scheme could be one of the good options to save for your children’s education. Try to ascertain what kind of fees will be required for studies / training. To illustrate, if you need Rs. 20 lacs for fees after 10 years, you may have to start an SIP for Rs. 9000 per month assuming an annual return of 12%.

Like they say, “the best preparation for tomorrow is to do today’s job superbly well”

Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risks, read all scheme related documents carefully.