A company won’t have to spend on training a candidate as the candidate is already job-ready, says Director

In an interview with Shiksha.com, Soumyadipta, Director of the Harkisan Mehta Institute of Media, Research and Analysis, discusses the institute's teaching methods in detail. The institute recognises the gap between industry expectations and students' acumen and has gone to great lengths to assist them in becoming industry-ready. Students that graduate from the institute require no or very little instruction, and they are qualified to take on responsible projects.

Soumyadipta is a senior journalist, commentator, editorial consultant and educator based in Mumbai

Read the complete interview below

Q: What are the three things that your institute is doing that will enable it to differentiate itself from the competition?

A: We have a number of innovations in the teaching process and course delivery but I consider the following as the top three innovations to teach media courses.

Focus on practical delivery and future on-the-job performance of a learner: Most of the Master degree and Diploma programmes in Advertising, Journalism and other related courses are theory-heavy. The goal is to make the students gain a lot of knowledge about their domain subject which can stir their interest in acquiring even more knowledge or doing research.

In our case, we completely flipped the idea. Our goal is to make the candidate perform well when s/he will be working as a professional after doing the course.

Hence, our course is completely modelled on what a candidate will have to do when s/he is working as a professional advertising professional or a journalist or a digital marketeer.

So, our goal is to ensure that our student excels as professional, academic excellence may follow.

No written exams: Carrying forward from our earlier goal, we have decided to do away with written exams for our Diploma programmes. In real-life professional set-ups, the promotion of professionals doesn’t depend on three-hour, hundred-mark written tests but on their performance over the past 12 months. In no advertising agency or newsroom, will a boss ask a team member, “So you want a promotion? Okay, come, take this written test.” So, our students are marked on assignments, projects, class performance etc. and written tests are not a part of our evaluation process. We don’t want to know how much you can memorise. We want to know how good you might be as a professional.

Senior professionals as teachers: To teach our courses, you don’t need a PhD degree. You need at least a decade of rigorous professional experience and you get to teach your specialised field only. So, all teachers are senior and expert professionals and not somebody who is an academic.

Q: What are the top three initiatives undertaken by you that are helping your students become more industry ready?

A: As evident in the first answer, our entire focus is to make a student industry-ready. Not only ready but an over-achiever as a professional. But, I also want to mention here how a company benefits by hiring our students.

No need to train: A company won’t have to spend on training a candidate as the candidate is already job-ready. The company merely needs to assign the candidate his/her job.

No amateur mistakes: One of the biggest attributes of our students is that they don’t make amateur mistakes which is a problem with most new hires. Our students don’t need to learn on the job. They have already been trained like that.

More return for investment: Our students are better as a human resource because they are trained for a particular job by the same professionals who would have otherwise mentored them in the company. In fact, they have been mentored by 25 to 30 senior professionals over one year that no company will be able to achieve. So, hiring our students is better for the business.

Q: What are the key attributes that a student should have in order to qualify for your institution and perform better?

A: Students who want to study at our institution must have a thirst to become top professionals. If you are studying Journalism, you must aim to become a great journalist or if you are studying advertising, then you must aim to become famous advertising professional. If you want to do Academic Research in the area then you must choose another institution.

To perform, one must have a passion for the subject. They must dream of becoming a great professional. Rest will automatically follow.

Q: Which programme/s would you say is/are your best? What is it that helps your institution differentiate itself for this programme?

A: Our postgraduate programmes are the best. We have two such programmes: (i) PG Diploma in Advertising and PR and (ii) PG Diploma in Journalism and New Media.

Q: What are you doing to improve/drive better campus placements for your current students and alumni? What kind of jobs routinely come to campus? What would you say are the key recruitment trends for your college (observed over the past five years)?

A: All of our students are taught by professionals who come to teach on campus. So, when the training (we call it that way) is almost over, our faculties start recommending various students to companies when the courses are nearing completion.

Media companies also routinely hire our students because they save money on training and orientation of the candidates.

Over the last five years, social media management and social media content writing has come up as a major focus area for recruiters.