BMM: Being Mass Media Part 2

Second year of BMM is the time when one has well-adjusted with know-how of BMM unless they have changed their college admission, thereby leading them to start with some of the basics in the new college & learning about the new environment as soon as possible. This is again similar to when one joins a new organization while leaving the old one! For me SYBMM was a different experience &since I didn't change my college, I had an experience that I felt was true & has some similarity with the media.

SYBMM:

Mindset:

By this time, each individual has formed a particular mindset with regards to how one has to behave in class, what kind of a person one is, how one can behave during a particular lecture, which person one needs to have for project completion, by what time one should reach college, etc. It is similar to when one has adjusted to the office environment, know which source or person is reliable enough to work with, what projects will get more preference, how to behave with seniors in the office, etc.

Responsibility:

Each individual starts thinking about the responsibilities that they want to take up related to fields like becoming a CL or ACL for particular festival, being part of a dance, creative, film, photography, ad, treasury, sports or PR team, heading these departments, just being a participant or be a mere spectator. One might also feel that they should not be a part of any festival, thinking that such responsibilities will be a burden or a waste of time when it does help in furthering one’s skill, talent & knowledge in their field. This also happens when it comes to taking responsibility for a solo or group assignment. One will either try to excel in their solo assignment or still laze around & give a mediocre or terrible assignment. One will either refrain themselves from group assignment for fear of being the only one who has to do the complete assignment work or be the one who knows someone else will complete the assignment work for them or they can be the helping the group or leading the entire group to do a good assignment or a mediocre one. While even assignments do help individuals as know their talent as an individual or team worker or as a good or bad leader. If they know this talent within them, they will also know how they can fare in office work & how useful they will be for the organization!

Career Path Choice:

At this point of time, every individual has to decide which career path they should take. Whether it is journalism or advertising, for which they have to decide early on as they will be applying admissions in college & the batch will have to be segregated accordingly. It can also be related to other fields such as film making, acting, photography, marketing, etc. for which they have to know the scope & still decide which class division they have to go – Advertising or Journalism! This decision has to be made as it will be difficult for one to make an insight of the career choice during TYBMM or after graduation. Similarly one has to have knowledge of the department that they want to work in an organisation as the organisation cannot afford to give their employee too much time to make a decision as to which department he/she wants to work for permanently. It will also help the individual in utilizing his/her talent to the full extent once he/she has decided the department he/she wants to work for permanently, thus helping the individual & the organisation at the same time.

Holidays:

Lectures getting canned & public holidays are what every individual yearns for during this time as their constant activity in different fields such as festivals, assignments and personal matters tires them mentally (if not physically) as most of the individuals have become more active during this year than they were in FYBMM! While in FYBMM, individuals had more free time to utilize which led to their complacency, in SYBMM they have to become active directly or indirectly for which they are not prepared for. Similarly, every individual in an organisation yearns for a holiday as they have been working hard & have got less time to spend with themselves, family, loved ones, etc. It is a necessity as it freshens an employee’s mind, who will then be able to give his/her best at the job.

Mediators:

SYBMM batch is also a mediator between the FYBMM & TYBMM batch. Their words & criticism will decide the relation between these two batches. In a way, the coordination needed between these two batches is also necessary in fields such as advice with regards to assignment from the TYBMM batch, participation in festivals from both batches, avoidance of ego clashes between the two, orientation, fresher’s party & farewell party organisation. This top to bottom communication is also vital as it will decide how the next batch will behave with the future freshmen. It will be either taking good inspiration from the seniors or bad legacies continuing down the line. It can also be behaving in an opposite manner then that of seniors – good or bad. But the mediators play a vital role as they can either reverse the negative feeling the FYBMM batch have for the TYBMM batch or they can be the propagators of their hatred towards their seniors. Similarly in media organisations, it is naturally expected that freshmen & juniors respect the seniors in the organisation. The mediators are not present at times depending on the close interactions that the seniors might have with their juniors. But given by the division of authoritative post, the mediators can be considered the ones who are above the juniors & below the senior authoritative posts. It’s important that an organisation have proper coordination among its employees & therefore mediators play a key role in helping this coordination. These mediators can also be in the form of the HR department.

Changing Trends:

Just like fashion trends keep changing, similarly trends that were followed in the previous year would change this year. If in the previous year, there were less participants for a particular festival then this year it might have more participants. If last year any festival was good, the next year it might not be the same. How everyone reacts to these changing trends will depend on their personality or behavior that they have adopted. Similarly, in media organisations trends keep changing. An organisation might be doing a good job at a particular period but later might do a dismal performance. The way the organisation’s employees react to these changing trends determines how well it can sustain itself & catches up with the changing trends. Employee behavior is vital for the organisation to survive in today’s world. Therefore the organisation must have strong leadership to help in maintaining organisation progress & motivate employees to work harder especially in troubled times.

This is what I experienced in my SYBMM year, but do you agree with it? Comment about it your experience if it doesn’t match mine. Next up will be the final & crucial year – TYBMM!

P.S. – There will be added bonus points that I will share with you all! Until next week then.