The Pre-university course (PUC) is an important first step towards a fulfilling career where you will be confronted with choices that will determine what college and college programme you can choose. In PUC, the subjects are divided into three streams - Science, Commerce and Arts/Humanities. Two languages, that is, English as the first language and a choice between Hindi, Kannada, or Sanskrit are common to all three streams. Apart from this, students choose four subjects in combination to study over a two year period. Different colleges offer different subject combinations and the student’s choice must be based on their aptitude, interest, and the subjects that are prerequisite for the college course they wish to apply to.
In the science stream, you will study Science subjects, that is, Physics (P), Chemistry (C), Biology (B), Computer Science (C), Electronics (E), Mathematics (M) and Statistics (S). The subject combinations that are typically offered by colleges are -
The commerce stream subjects are Accounts (A), Economics (E), Business Studies (B), Computer Science (Cs), Statistics (S). The subject combinations that are typically offered by colleges are -
Art stream subjects include Sociology (S), Economics (E), Political Science (P), Psychology(Py) and History (H). These are typically offered in subject combinations such as -
The PUC curriculum is designed to help students choose programmes and gain experience that will be relevant to college education. While studying, students will develop a school of thought, reasoning and skills that are transferable to a college programme, life and career. With a science background, students will develop strong analytical and critical thinking skills as they will be working with absolute data and proof. In commerce, they build their business analytics and commerce acumen. Students learn to see things in the context of profit, losses and opportunities. Humanities contributes to building a student's soft skills such as communication skills, reasoning and research skills.
PUC is a foundational programme where students learn the core concepts and terminologies and their interplays.
The subjects, curriculum and syllabus in PUC are all designed to acquaint students with the different professional career streams. While some professional study fields have absolutely strong requirements in pure sciences. For instance, for engineering, architecture and medical studies, students must study Science stream. College courses for law, business studies, journalism etc., don’t have such entry requirements, and students from any stream can choose to join it. The best college courses for PUC graduates in the science stream are -
For commerce students, best college programmes are -
For Arts students, the best college programmes are -
Mostly, commerce students opt to prepare for professional certification programmes such as Chartered Accountant or Company Secretary while they are pursuing college, but there is no barrier or pre-requisite for these programmes and Science and Arts background students can also study for these. Similarly, students from all academic backgrounds can even study and earn software programming certification.
Colleges are offering new and innovative courses that are relevant to the current market needs and teach skills that are pertinent for a career in various fields. Many of these courses are interdisciplinary programmes which break barriers of Science, commerce and Humanities and lead to interesting career pathways. Fields such as biotechnology, hypnotherapy, marine biology, health administration, advertising, etc have extensive opportunities. Typical career roles can be as a researcher or manager in a company or institution or as an entrepreneur.
It is important to pursue PUC from a reputed college to learn about new college programmes and how to enter them. Most good colleges have university guidance counsellors and career counsellors who help students understand the modalities for applying to various college programmes. You will also be in the company of like-minded peers who will steer you in the right direction through communication and group activities.
