Is Choosing a Major Choosing a Career or Interesting Courses? An Investigation into College Students’ Orientations for College Majors and Their Stability

Students’ orientations towards choosing their college majors lead them to make different major choices with long-term stratification implications. In this paper, we investigate what orientations students use to choose their majors, how these orientations vary by student characteristics, how stable orientations are across the first year of college, and what mechanisms might explain how orientations change. We use mixed-methods data from an original longitudinal survey (N=1,117) and longitudinal in-depth interviews with 50 first-year students at UNC-Chapel Hill (N=146 interviews). We find that students rely on many different orientations, including learning interesting things and helping others, and that their most important orientations frequently change during the first year of college. These findings challenge the existing assumption that major orientations are stable and suggest the need to incorporate changing orientations into models of the major decision process if we hope to successfully intervene to disrupt inequality reproduction.

ENABLING EMPLOYMENT FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY (PWD): READINESS, COMMITMENT, AND DISPOSITION OF MALAYSIAN EMPLOYERS

People with disabilities (PWD) struggle with prejudices, narrow-mindedness, and maltreatment. This situation has brought many questions on how the public serves them. Concerning PWDs' employment, the source of income and the wellbeing of this community frequently be neglected and depreciated. The research issues a call to this agenda and suggests action to empower employment among PWD. Descriptive quantitative research was employed to 136 employers from various industries. This article reports three variables: readiness, commitment, and disposition of industrial players on hiring PWD. The results of the study describe that employers are more likely to hire PWD in their organization based on their readiness and commitment, however, the disposition was discouraging. The types of disabilities, industries and ethnicities of the PWD contribute to a major decision when hiring PWD. Employment of PWDs is afflicted by skeptical and dubious perspectives due to their capabilities and capacities to fulfill job responsibilities. With encouragement and empowerment of skilled development programs, PWD is supposed to be allowed to join the workforce, performing a job that suits their impairment. Ongoing support must be advocated among the grassroots of the nations that ultimately flourish the life of PWD.

FirstCry: A Hybrid Store Strategy Creating Big Wonders!

On May 17, 2010, Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha founded BrainBees Solution with a seed capital of US$39.01 million, which led to the launch of the e-commerce site FirstCry.com. An online e-commerce website that offers all kinds of baby and kids-focused products from diaper pins to strollers. The global and Indian baby care market has seen huge growth in the last few years. It is estimated that by the year 2020, the projected growth of this market will be over 17%. The rising birth rate and disposable income of young parents have also favoured the growth of baby care products. In a country like India, the mortar and brick stores held the major share of the baby care products market. Supam Maheshwari was in the midst of a major decision, but he was faced with some questions. Would he be able to design a unique hybrid model? Would this model help them compete with mortar and brick stores? Would FirstCry be able to build an ecosystem to provide solutions to parents? What strategy should FirstCry adapt for long-term success?

The Upsurge and Impact of COVID 19 in India: Health Issues and Remedial Measures

The novel Coronavirus was something that nobody was prepared for. It was that part of the syllabus which was always neglected. The contagious disease which started in the Wuhan region of China had started to settle in various parts of the World. The outbreak of this disease has reached such a huge number that all the countries witnessed lockdown in some form or the other. Some people have witnessed destruction of mankind while some have even leisured this time to their fullest but as it has been always said “Prevention is better than cure”. Prevention of covid 19 in all the nations was one of the major steps which was taken in the year 2020. In India it all started in the year of 2019 December when the first ever case of covid 19 was reported in the state of Kerala followed by Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Delhi. Following such a situation and then sudden increase in the no of cases all over the country a major decision was taken that was of Complete lockdown excluding the emergency and essential services. Before taking the step of lockdown, as a gesture of respect to the frontline workers, government of India announced Tali Bajao movement. In the period of lockdown Certain norms were even made mandatory that were wearing a mask, maintenance of hand sanitation and following social distancing of 1.5 meters in public places. All the educational institutes and teachings were even suspended during the time period of lockdown as it could have become a hub for the virus to spread. With time, the restrictions which were laid down in lockdown were started to be reduced in the phase wise manner and finally India noticed its very first Unlock period. In all this scenario mankind has dealt with various situations and have emerged to be a better person. All these steps were crucial to control the spread of Novel Coronavirus and prevention from the already spread cases.

Reactivating Anaesthesia Services in Semporna Hospital Operating Theatre: A COVID-19 SOS Response

Introduction: The district of Semporna, Sabah faced an overwhelming surge of COVID-19 third wave by mid-September 2020. Tawau Hospital services were severely debilitated with the free flowing sick COVID-19 cases referred from Hospital Semporna as its district cluster. This was on top of the usual busy referrals of non-COVID-19 cases especially maternity related.Case Presentation & Discussion: As an ultra-red zone area, all Semporna patients were unfortunately classified as high risk COVID-19 and managed as such to ease clinical decisions. The anaesthesia services in Semporna Hospital’s operating theatre had ceased since 2007. All decisions related to possible intervention of normal labour were referred to Hospital Tawau which is 107 km away. The operating theatre was then prepared with reference to high safety international standards despite the technical drawbacks of old infrastructure facilities. The acquirement of new operation theatre (OT) equipment by Ministry of Health (MOH) due to the pandemic made the balance possible. A thorough discussion and agreement of protocols were made between the major decision makers of clinical departments from both Tawau and Semporna Hospital. A lower segment Caesarean section was performed successfully under regional anaesthesia on the 30th of October 2020 in Semporna Hospital after a 13 years’ hiatus. There were anumber of indirect benefits to the Semporna mothers and hospital with this reactivation.Conclusion: This was indeed a milestone towards upgrading the hospital for specialist services in the near future.This effort has improved the safety and quality of medical services for Semporna patients.International Journal of Human and Health Sciences Supplementary Issue: 2021 Page: S19

A decisão de ser médico: estudo multicultural Brasil-Portugal

Introduction: The definition of a professional career represents the adolescent’s first major decision and, in general, it occurs in a context of indecision, conflicts and transformations, typical of this stage of life. Objective: To understand the motivations that lead adolescents to choose a medical career in Brazil and in Portugal. Method: Exploratory study with a qualitative approach, which used open interviews. The participants were 17 Portuguese and 14 Brazilian freshman medical students attending a public university in the north of Portugal and a private university in the northeast of Brazil in 2018. Bardin’s Content Analysis was used for the analysis and interpretation of the speeches, using the thematic modality. Result: Two thematic modalities were identified: intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and six cores of meaning: willingness to help others, natural tendency, Medicine as a science, interest in research, influence of models, professional stability/social status. Conclusion: Adolescent freshman medical students in Brazil and Portugal showed similar motivations for their professional choice. Intrinsic motivations predominated and the willingness to help others was the most frequent reason for choosing the medical course in both countries.

The decision to be a physician: a Brazil-Portugal multicultural study

Introduction: The definition of a professional career represents the adolescent’s first major decision and, in general, it occurs in a context of indecision, conflicts and transformations, typical of this stage of life. Objective: To understand the motivations that lead adolescents to choose a medical career in Brazil and in Portugal. Method: Exploratory study with a qualitative approach, which used open interviews. The participants were 17 Portuguese and 14 Brazilian freshman medical students attending a public university in the north of Portugal and a private university in the northeast of Brazil in 2018. Bardin’s Content Analysis was used for the analysis and interpretation of the speeches, using the thematic modality. Result: Two thematic modalities were identified: intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and six cores of meaning: willingness to help others, natural tendency, Medicine as a science, interest in research, influence of models, professional stability/social status. Conclusion: Adolescent freshman medical students in Brazil and Portugal showed similar motivations for their professional choice. Intrinsic motivations predominated and the willingness to help others was the most frequent reason for choosing the medical course in both countries.