A Nightmare called Exams

A friend’s dad once told me,’ never fear anything because the thing you fear the most will come true no matter how hard you try.’ I have to say that he was right. Like every student I have an exam phobia and as it happens the nightmare called exams inevitably comes to haunt me in every six months. I had hoped that once I joined Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) at the University of Mumbai, I might not fear the exams as much as I did in my school and college life till now. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

It was childish of me to think that I might not be scared of exams when I join the Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) because after all it is an academic course and no academic course is complete without exams. It’s said that exams are the only yardstick with the help of which a student’s performance can be gauged.  I should not and I will not argue with that anymore because I consider myself to have outgrown that phase when I questioned the very concept of exams.

The management at the department of communication and journalism which conducts the Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) course also have tried to move away from the cliché that exams are the only way a student’s performance can be measured. This is the reason why they do not solely rely on exams to judge a student but also give equal importance to the way a student performs in the class and in the assignments given. For them exams is just a means to see how well a student has understood the concepts taught to him/her in the class and how well he/she is able to communicate it. For them assignments is a way to judge how well a student can apply the concepts and exams is a way to find out how the concepts are communicated.

It is a good thing because this is the reason why I don’t fear exams as much as I used to before. That said, it does not mean that I no longer think of exams as a nightmare. Exams have and will continue to give me sleepless nights because I guess one of the main objectives of exams is to scare the hell out of the students.

 

What’s the need to do Masters in PR?

Public Relations is a still an evolving industry in India. This is the reason why there’re not many specialized courses in it. If we look at the people who’re in the industry we’ll find that majority of them come from varied academic backgrounds. Industry people believe that to enter Public Relations and to grow in the industry, all one needs is good communication skills and should know how to handle people. These are some of the reasons why not many have heard of the Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) course offered by the University of Mumbai in its Kalina campus.

Industry wallahs understand if someone tells them that he/she is doing a one year diploma in Public Relations. The moment they hear that someone is doing a two years full time Masters in Public Relations (MAPR), they say,” Two years Masters? In PR it’s not needed. Are you sure you want to spend two years doing a Masters in PR?” Well you can’t blame the industry people to think that way because the trend in the industry has been such. For them it’s always been how well you’re able to talk to the media and get the news story out. It has always been an instinctive and natural thing for them, which is why they think that a proper education in it is not needed.

Though there’s a different school of people in the industry as well. People who actually think that always going on the instinct is not the best thing and the industry needs a well structured thought process to achieve the standards set by the counterparts in countries like US, UK, etc. This is the reason why they’re glad that University of Mumbai is offering a proper full time Masters in Public Relations (MAPR). A course which just doesn’t teach the students to write press releases also makes sure that they develop a lateral thinking.

As it’s often said that ‘Change is the only constant thing’, change in the way the PR industry functions is also inevitable. It is going to take some time for everyone to lap up to it but it’s surely going to happen one day.

Start of a memorable journey

Many of my friends ask me about what made me quit my job and join the Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) course of the Mumbai University. Well, before I had actually joined the course I couldn’t really tell them why I had taken that decision, I used to just say because I wanted to continue studying. That was the truth but not the complete truth.

Now that I’m a part of the current batch of Masters in Public Relations (MAPR), I can say confidently that I’ve the answer to their questions. I still remember the day when I first went to the Department of Communication & Journalism at the Kalina Campus of University of Mumbai. I had gone to meet the professor heading the course, to talk about my admission. It was the first time I was going to the Kalina campus and the campus bowled me over, there were trees all around and the campus was huge and for once I didn’t feel I had entered a concrete jungle.

After admiring the campus for a few minutes I walked towards the building where the lectures for Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) are conducted. Still having some doubts in my mind about whether what I had decided to do was the right thing or not, I entered the department. In the department I saw students in a couple of classrooms having a discussion with a professor, some students sitting on the stairs and working (an assumption) on their laptops, some just involved in a friendly banter. The scene in the department reinfused that little bit of faith I had lost in my decision, it made me feel that, ‘this is where I belong, this is where I want to be.’ That is one day I can never forget because it was the start of a journey of a lifetime for me.

Not to forget the statement or a question my HOD made/asked when I asked him where I could find the professor who handles MAPR. He exclaimed and I quote:

 “You’re a student!!!”

Damn!! I better get used to this reaction I get from people when they realise that I’m just a 22 year old and not some guy in his late 20s.