Our Vision Is To Produce Good Human Beings & Future Leaders: Dr. Jaya N. Patil, IFIM College

With the assistance and encouragement of Centre for Developmental Education (CDE), IFIM College has succeeded in enabling students to become business-ready corporate professionals (The CDE is a non-profit society, founded by the DSIJ group - the publishers of the popular Dalal Street Investment Journal). It offers world-class education by nurturing human values, ethics and by imparting knowledge, which emphasizes on life skills. The college nurtures and supports a unique system of education, structured on Bangalore University syllabi, combining the tenets of academic excellence and corporate professionalism.

BW Education interacts with Dr. Jaya N. Patil, Associate Professor & Program Head - BA (JPE), Department of Journalism, IFIM College and spoke to her.

Excerpts:

Tell us something about your department. Which courses you’re having and how many students on campus right now?

My department has journalism, psychology and optional English. This is a triple major started in 2013. Right now there are 50 students, the coursework followed is according to the Bangalore University syllabus. There are both theoretical as well as practical subjects in the coursework which we balance in such a way that theoretically whatever is learnt we put it into practice along with assignments, case studies, role plays, street plays etc. We also design our own themes. European, Indian as well as American literature all are being taught at the undergraduate levels.

What differentiates IFIM College from other set of colleges who are providing similar courses?

We are very different, even though we don't have TV and radio stations but our practical orientation is quite different from others. Now when we set the lab it will give an added impetus, we are different in the learning skills, we have what is called as General Learning Goals (GLG) which no other college has a part of the teaching plan. In our teaching plan we use GLG and Learning Objectives (LO).

What are the major challenges you are facing currently and how do you overcome them?

Till now I haven’t faced any challenges because of my vast experience, I am able to handle all situations very smoothly because I don’t allow anything to escalate. But challenges in the sense that the TV studio which we are going to start right now will be another milestone for us.

According to you how is the digital era impacting the way students are trained today?

There is a vast difference in the past and the present. In the past people used to feel that if they do post-graduation only then they get jobs. However, UG level itself the communication is so fast that it is impacting the life of people. Liberalisation, globalisation and technology are playing a very important role in promotion and growth of UG career. In our course if a student has finished his/her degree he/she can immediately get job anywhere, be it public relations-he can go as a executive manager, business communication manager, as editor, reporter, online content writer, copy writer etc.  Advertising also, it has really picked up and many people are making a good career out of that. Photography, documentary, video production has picked up so fast that people today are not waiting for options, they are just getting into it they know it's their career. We are teaching photography, television everything and apart from this we are sending them for short films etc. life has become easier because of speed, the whole world is a global village and IFIM is contributing a lot here.

What is the main motive of IFIM College - to produce entrepreneurs or just job seekers? 

Our main motive is to produce continuous employable products, our vision is to produce good human beings, future leaders and the mission has to match our visions. Our main objective is employability.

As head of the department, what goals have you decided for the coming 3-5 years?

Actually I really have a vision where I want to make it as number 1, it will take some time but I definitely want to make it. In the coming days we want to jump from 20 to 10 and 10 to 1 that is the major target.

Is there any exclusive update for your department which you want to announce in the coming months? 

Yes, we want to do our media conclave with all the experts from media in the country, the conclave will happen within the next 6 months. The other thing is we would like have one of the biggest international conference ever held with mass communication research environment. So these are my two targets.

What advice will you give to the young students, professionals for success in life?

Students earlier were more focused, there was no internet or smart phones, and the technology was different. Today’s youngsters are more brilliant more intelligent but they lack balance, in the sense since earlier there were no smartphones they did not use to bother but now every step the mobile is there. So my advice will be use mobile for a particular cause second is adhere to the curriculum in the way it is expected. But by enlarge they are more brilliant more intelligent.