Every one of us, some time or the other, put up a question to oneself that was my decision right to join the merchant navy? The answer will depend on many factors but the most dominating factor will be the perceptions in one's mind before joining the merchant navy.

Many of us have joined the merchant navy after seeing a lavish life style of a seafarer, who happened to be one of our relatives or a friend and by hearing of stories of seeing the world. Well, we know that none of the above two factors were wrong but we were not aware of the tough part of the life. The threshold of tough life again depends upon one's preparedness for the realities. More the mind is prepared less the job becomes tough.

So the sea life can be bliss for those who love adventure, who have desire to see the world, who want to feel the oceans and waves, have enough courage to withstand ocean moods, are tough enough to work in adverse conditions, are committed to the cause, have team work spirits and want to earn while enjoying their job.

On the other hand the sea life can be curse for those who joined the sea with a belief that they will see the world as tourists, will go for scuba diving very often, become captain of the ship just after few months of service, will earn wages which will be equal to none, will be assisted by many subordinates while at work and so on... The life will be curse for these people because they live in fantasies and believe only on the rosy things without deeper knowledge.

The life out there at sea is challenging yet peaceful, adventures yet safer, tough under adverse conditions yet most job satisfying and most important and not the least, enough money to lead the life as upper middle class citizen.

The world is changing so the job profile of seafarer is changing and it is changing at faster pace. At the same time, career options to join the merchant navy are changing. These options are not only subject to job profile of a seafarer but the available options other than merchant navy Jobs. Jobs in other industries such as IT, ITES, Retail and Logistics are attracting people of both skilled and non skilled calibre.

Many people take up land based jobs due to wrong notion that land based life is safer than sea life. While there are hazards in sea life, but the hazards are there in every industry. For the comparison sake, it can be safely said that life on board a ship is safer than the road travel in India.

Many of us get disillusioned at the early stage of sea life and migrate to jobs in other diverse sectors, such as IT, Aviation, Films, entrepreneurship, real estates and so on.. But most of these people return back to sea life after realizing the hardship and demanding conditions of those jobs.

One can be most satisfying by the sea life, if one prepares his/her mind of realities of sea life and enjoys by making most of his leisure time. Every job is demanding so is the merchant navy job. Merchant Navy job has merit of being one of most paying, fast promotions and adventurous jobs.

While many papers have been presented in various seminars regarding various topics, but the paper presented by Mr. B.N. Prasad of Bernhard Schulte is thought provoking. Mr. Prasad has conducted studies of wages scales of a seafarer vis-a-vis an IT sector employee and provided some eye opening results. Mr. Prasad has been kind enough to present these results to Jobships.com users. Please read Mr. Prasad's interview to find these presentations.