— Devina Sethia, TYBMM, Sophia College
Have you ever experienced eating a buffet lunch with an endless spread of items to choose from? Thai dishes. Japanese Sushi’s. Punjabi tadka. Et el. (your mouth is already watering, I suppose.) Have you ever tasted everything on the platter and then realised you fancied a particular cuisine?
You must be wondering why I am talking about buffet lunches here. Well, because Bachelor’s in Mass Media (BMM) is just like the buffet lunch. BMM is the course that will give you the taste, flavour and feel of as many as 36 subjects including Cinema, Public Relations, Advertising, Journalism, Marketing etc. BMM as an undergraduate degree course will open up innumerable avenues for your career that you can choose from. Film-making, Print Journalism, Public Relations, Radio, Television, Advertising, Event Management, Photography and the list goes on!
In today’s world, films are being made on true incidents reported by the journalists. Advertisers are joining hands with film-makers and film-stars to promote and sell their product. Radio is broadcasting news as well as entertainment. I hope these instances mentioned above are enough to make you understand that all these different branches of media are inter-linked and inter-connected. Having the knowledge of all aspects of media will help you enhance your talent and skill in the field of media that you choose to pursue. Hence, one can say that BMM is as good if not better than any specialised degree course. Let me give you an instance to further explain my point. Two interns were hired by a print media firm. Intern A was a second year BMM student and Intern B was a second year English Hons. student. Intern A managed to get two by-line feature articles to her credit during the month long internship. One article required research while the other needed interview skills. On the other hand, intern B could not even manage a single one. The reason was not that she was not good enough or did not have the potential. The reason was that it took her sometime to understand how to research, how to interview and how to report. Intern A did not face any such trouble having studied ‘Mass Media Research’ and ‘Reporting’ as a part of her course.
Passion. Passion to find answers. Passion to seek the truth. Passion to entertain. Passion for media. Passion. This is the one and only and surely the most important pre-requisite one must have before joining the media course. Your passion for any field of the media is the only thing that will help you cope up with the stress that comes along in the course. Yes, there will be stress. A little bit of it. I’m not scaring you, it is just that I’m just informing you. So, should you not take up this course because it’s stressful? No way. Should you take up this course because you’re passionate about the media? Yes. Should you take up this course because you want to explore as many possibilities as you can? Yes, please take up this course.
If you think you can work with the camera or in front of it, if you think you enjoy being back stage, if you love writing, if you want to be the next big journalist, then I think BMM is the place for you.
