Live your passion with your profession!

Gone are the days when people lived a single career life. With the current changing scenario, people have had to pursue a career that brings in the money despite having to compromise on their passion or hobby.

Not any more! You can now live and practice your passion along with your mainstream career that gets you the money.

Yes, you could be a CA during the day and a DJ at night, or, a Banker during the day and an Event Manager during the night… Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Is it really practical? It is indeed!

Today when we talk about the concept of ‘Work-Life Balance,’ in addition to a regulated lifestyle, pursuing an ardent career can be a great source of de-stress. Since it is something that you are so feverish about, it brings out the real you which tends to fade away with the hectic schedules. It helps you take off the mask rejuvenating you completely.

What’s more – these second career options can be your partner for life because in general, these careers do not come with a validity period. If you are good at it, you can profess them for your lifetime. For instance, while you can be a DJ at 25, you can make people sway to your music even when you are 40 or above if you are really fanatical about it.

Besides, there is a dual advantage. While these second career options add to your regular income, they actually help you experiment with an alternative career option, something that you love doing apart from your mainstream career. You can then probably take a call on your stressful job much earlier than you would have done otherwise.

Alternative careers could be just anything – from painting to pottery, blogs to sports, astrology to being a handwriting analyst or DJing to managing events. While the options are endless, we take a look at some of the second career options that are gaining popularity with today’s generation.

Photography: Love looking through the lens and capturing special moments? If camera is your best friend, then Photography is definitely your passion. Look out for a course that can train you up whether you want to pursue it as a professional photographer or as a keen hobbyist. You will need to learn from the Foundations of Photography, through a variety of specialized courses and workshops in different photographic fields that should be intensely practical, with extensive hands-on experience, feedback and critical appraisal throughout the entire course.

DJing: Love grooving to the DJ music at a friend’s party or after a stressful day of work? Why not create your own mix? All this is possible if you learn the art of beat matching with hands-on training on some of the best equipments, getting acquainted with the current trends in Digital technology and learning how to manage music in a sequential and organized manner. If you love playing with music tracks and make people dance to your tunes, then DJing is a career option for you. Djing as it is often known as is a niche field catering mostly to a global or regional audience with a varied taste in music.

Sound Engineering: Sound Engineering forms the basis of the audio and music industry and the demands for trained professionals in this stream is only rising. Take up a course that has a curriculum that encompasses analog and digital recording, live show music production, and audio post-production for films, television, radio, animation, gaming and more and you are sure to make a name for yourself in the music and entertainment industry. Sound Engineering is one of the most dynamic sectors today. There is much more to sound engineering than just sitting in a recording studio 24×7 and mixing sounds. Once you are a sound engineer, you can explore numerous possibilities right from carrying out research and development in new technologies to shaping algorithms for audio signal processing, and creating audible sound for video game console manufacturers. It is said that Sound Engineering is one profession wherein despite tireless nights in the recording studio, you would still want to keep going.

Electronic Music Production: If you are looking to join the league of successful music producers, it is no longer a distant dream. All you need to do is learn right from the basics of audio – understanding the fundamentals of audio including frequency, amplitude, wavelength, wave theory and everything in audio physics to music theory and composition to recording arts with mixing techniques, multi track recording, and how to record different instruments.

Musical Instruments: A career in Music Instruments is very creative and challenging. Music is everywhere and it is always incomplete without the instruments. Musical instruments are more than just pure mechanical objects; they are a source of inspiration! Learning a musical instrument can often take you to a new dimension altogether! Musical instruments are at the core of any music composition whether that is classical or contemporary music. Every film has its own musical score; every orchestra has a range of musicians playing a variety of instruments and then there are concerts.

Once you have identified the option and made your choice, the next important thing is to select the right institute to pursue the course. Now this can be a difficult one because since this is your second career option, you might not be at liberty to take up a regular, full-time course. Besides, most of these will be practical oriented, so might not have the correspondence option. Secondly, you will also not want to compromise on the course content. To add to it, the institute will have to be in the same city as well. Now getting a perfect combination of all these factors put together can really be a challenge. Hence, you will need to take baby steps in selecting the best possible source for coaching in the limitations that you may be surrounded with.

Whatever said and done, ‘Additional Careers’ in the present time can be really exciting and satisfying. Pursuing a second career might demand a little extra time and effort, however every bit of it is worthwhile. So, go ahead and make a choice and the effort you put in now will reap fruits for your lifetime.