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. 

Assignment submissions tomorrow at 11!!!

The words dreaded the most by the students of Masters in Public Relations (MAPR). Assignments play an important role in the whole education process. It’s through assignments only which helps a professor to judge how well the student can apply the theoretical knowledge he/she has gained in the lectures. Well, the assignments aren’t just something professors dole out because they want to but even the University of Mumbai officially uses internal/assignments as a yardstick to measure a student’s performance.

There’s a general perception amongst everyone be it the professors or the parents that students hate assignments. Well, being a student of Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) myself, I would say that the students of MAPR break that perception. We, here at the Kalina campus of University of Mumbai like doing these assignments because they aren’t in the mould of those boring homework activities we used to get when we were in school and junior college. The assignments here are fun to do and they push us to the limit to give our best. It’s not just that I’ve good things to say about the concept of assignments or the assignments that we get but it’s just out of habit that I like to talk about the positives. Assignments obviously come with deadlines and that means it’s a race with time.

Trust me when I say this, the professors conducting the Masters in Public Relations (MAPR) course in the Kalina campus of University of Mumbai take assignments and the deadlines seriously more than anything in the world. So, it’s but obvious that we students get anxious when the deadline nears. The anxiety is not just because we haven’t been able to finish off the assignment when there’s only like two hours left for the deadline, well, the anxiety levels are high because we need that stamp of approval from the professor. We need to know whether our hard work has paid off. It’s not just about the marks or score we get on a particular assignment but it’s about how well we’ve done it, how much we’ve improved from the last time and how much room we’ve for bettering ourselves.

To conclude I would just tweak a tagline of a washing powder

“Assignments acche hai”