Asian College of Journalism M.A Review By Rahul Gupta

I was so excited to join ACJ Chennai as I thought that the college is owned by the Hindu Group so I will have the best of placements and will learn about every inch of journalism. Well, it was all untrue as nothing like that happened rather ended up spending some extra time at the college. Also, the course is so lengthy because MA for three years was not just new for me but for everyone who heard about it. In the interview that was mandatory for admissions, we were asked about the latest happening in the world of politics, sports, and other things. So, if one is not updated, they were straightaway rejected. In short those who don’t read daily newspaper can never get here. Well, sorry for stretching the interview but the best part as we were asked a lot of questions on taboo things in our country and our opinions and answers were taken into consideration. After going through such grill, I was like finally, I will be in a sweet spot but trust me the course was unnecessary lengthy as 6 months of mandatory internships and all for free of cost hasn’t fetched anything fruitful.

The first year was when we were cooked to the core because from print media to other aspects of learning, we learned them all. Second year, we had to choose our specializations and I chose print media. The final year was a long internship program as we had to choose from the range of subjects like crime, sports, politics, and others to excel in that particular department. Being a huge fan of cricket and especially MS Dhoni, I decided to take up sports and see how players are being interviewed and what exactly is printed. I am not supposed to say more on that but ACJ provided us opportunity to join seniors of our intern groups to the players press conferences and how to take inputs from there and then create a story that would sell. So, academics taught us, how news is created and how it is sold.

Faculties were all journalists and some of the guest faculties were past maker of many prestigious news channels or newspapers. Learning under them was a privilege in itself as they devoted time and we were free to ask anything that we wanted from them. A broadcasting and print lab have been assembled at the campus and that is where our faculties used to teach us because one thing that was certain from our faculty was that don’t be in the second love of your life. Journalism is the toughest job in the world and if it doesn’t excite you, chuck it immediately.

Since my elective was sports, digital channels like Cricbuzz, Reuters, and others were there for placements. Maximum students were hired from the campus but with a salary of not more than 5 lakhs. Now after spending three years and doing a 6-month internship by paying all expenses from our pocket, such figures were hard to digest as in journalism business the jobs are gone without information. So, in a business of uncertainty, a job worth such amount was never going to be enough. I joined a digital channel and write questionnaires for a digital sports channel. All I know is that placements were not up to the mark in terms of figures but without ACJ, I don’t think, I could have laded to such places.

Luckily, the residence halls of the college were amazing as many students from North were staying and we also didn’t have to choose the food from the mess. The college is in an area of Chennai where finding commuting is easy and plus finding personal choices of food joints too was quite easy. Also, the hostel timings were not strictly followed at least for the boys. So, all in all, I had a comfortable and a pleasant stay at the hostels.

For infrastructure, one can applaud as much as they want for the infrastructure but it still won’t be enough as from building to the classrooms, it was more like a newsroom or news channel building. We had satellite towers and could directly interact with partner media houses of the college. The newsroom and the print labs were the areas where I spent the most time as we didn’t just had to cash news before it comes but sell it before anyone else. The auditorium was huge and arguably the best part of the infrastructure as many privileged guests have entered the auditorium and walked through their lives at the college’s MS auditorium.

Since, the college has many NRI students, it was nice to be around them and see how they look at India. The college events were also related to news as we had to be on the field for a large chunk of our time and then come back at integrated news room to prepare for the same. So campus life at ACJ just kept juggling because we hardly had a permanent class or the spot where we could find time and relax.