WHILE conventional BA/BSc/BCom degrees do have a charm of their own, a range of new programmes have also come into being. These are specialised degrees at the undergraduate level and assist students in developing an interest in domains that have either an application orientation or theories or concepts that are cutting edge in nature.

While some academics have decried this tendency to specialise at such an early stage of one’s academic career, many others contend that such an initiative would help an interested student to begin work on his or her domain without wasting precious time. What one losses by way of intellectual diversity, one gains in terms of domain depth. So as a young aspirant one needs to be quite careful when one moves towards a specialised degree at the UG level. One way to  have the best of both worlds is to do a generic UG degree and pursue a diploma/ certificate on the side.

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