Purpose of education is to acquire knowledge, evolve as critical thinkers and develop skills that help students scale through any adversity that presents itself in future. Learning must not be guided by what the market seems to suggest is attractive, but learning must be guided by first realising one’s own potential and, based on that, making a choice which can help you develop as a holistic human being in that field. Excellence will follow. Media education in the world today demands an interdisciplinary environment where the institutions also require knowledge seekers, not package seekers.
Learning is a lifelong experience, and students who aspire to explore education in the field of media and communication field must understand that in the digital era, where technological advancement is increasing by minute, the choices that they make must be rooted in their own interest areas. To start with Media Studies is such a field which is open to all those who think they can bring about a change in society – as media education is all about being able to create a space for oneself where you can develop a ‘new’ relationship between media and society as a whole. Even before the media educators and media industry professionals could come to a consensus on what and how the curriculums of Media and Communication could better serve the students, the information overload and digital interventions in everyday life have transformed how the GenZ or millennials must think getting themselves educated in this field.
Students are spoilt for choices, as every other educational institution, whether private or public, is constantly pitching itself as one of the best. Therefore, it becomes crucial for students to think on their feet, as the challenges to make a choice in what courses they should go for in comes from several quarters—first from the parents, second from the peers, and third from the market itself.
While it may be crucial to be critical to evaluate the nature of school education, which has evolved as an environment where there are more options in terms of subjects or streams that the students choose, whether or not maximum schools in the country are able to provide the essential learning environment for the students to grow in their areas of interest and to be able to choose what is best for them, still needs to explored. Barring a few regular schools, maybe some residential schools, the teaching-learning practices are still caught in the vicious circle of marks and percentages.
Unlearning the conventional ways of thinking about education can only help parents, teachers and students to acquire knowledge which is able to develop an individual who can think critically
As far as media is concerned, as many people as I have come across understand the term only as news. Not correct. Media Studies as a field is high-speed, which includes the study of how people use platforms to create, perform and disseminate stories central to the lived experiences. There are plenty of media platforms, like print, television, radio, and new media. Media practices also have a wide range like Journalism, Public Relations, Photography, Advertising, Corporate Communications, Media Marketing, Media Management, Media Research, Development Communication, Digital Communication, Graphics Designing, Online Gaming, Fashion Communication, Film Appreciation, Film Production, Sound and Design Production etc.
In the last decade, media and communication institutions across the country have been more focused on bringing students innovative and creative courses to the table, which are conceptualised very differently than the traditional media education sector. Across public and private media education sectors, educators are mindful of the fact that given the democratisation of media and easy internet accessibility in the country, niche online certificate courses are becoming very popular among students as they have varied choices of learning from the best not just in India but from anywhere in the world. Internationalisation of education has also opened up opportunities for interested students to go for dual degrees at institutions where there are academic collaborations with several foreign universities for specialised courses.
Teaching learning practices are also now transformed across colleges and universities as students now have a more interdisciplinary curriculum that includes several options for earning credits by taking massive open online courses that are both value-added and capacity-building courses. Exposure to industry processes and practices has also increased manifoldly as media professionals now have the option of becoming the ‘professor of practice’ in educational institutions, which helps bridge the gap between industry and academia. While the school environment for students till the 12th standard still remains institutionalised in conventional norms and practices, the undergraduate and postgraduate environments of teaching and learning have transformed in a variety of ways.
Unlearning the conventional ways of thinking about education will and can only help parents, teachers and students to acquire knowledge , which is able to develop an individual into a human being who can think critically, is sensitive to society and societal problems, and is sensitised to the idea of social inclusion and is able to develop the capability to perform in a multicultural environment.
Needless to say, a student aspiring to be a filmmaker or an actor must choose a course whose curriculum gives exposure to developing critical film appreciation skills along with production and acting skills. Choosing a journalism course for a degree sake will nowhere help the person hone his skills, in fact, he/she will derail the process of learning. There are several examples where people wanted to learn about films but chose a journalism course. Someone wanted to be a fashion journalist or a graphic designer and ended up choosing to do a fashion designing course.
It is imperative, therefore, to choose an undergrad course in the larger area of your interest, speak to the people in the related field, even school counsellors, and sift through the course curriculum carefully along with the faculty profiles of the concerned faculty or resource persons and then choose the best option available as degree course which can help you explore your strengths creatively and critically. This may sound tedious, but for parents and their children, this will come in handy in making the right choices for a future waiting to be harnessed. Clearly, there are no shortcuts if you want to live the life of your dreams.
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