The BMM Experience.
Bio: Chaitanya Shah is a Digital Strategist, travel blogger
at Traveling Curiously.net and the
Founder of Lunchex.co, a meal
sharing travel community. In his free time, Chaitanya makes travel itineraries,
ogles food porn and plays quidditch. You can connect with him on Twitter
@chaitanyavshah
Media is really the hot thing now isn’t it? At the risk of
sounding like a grandfather, I’d say that when I started my Bachelors of Mass
Media I literally had no idea what it was about and what I was going to do with
my life. Honest. Having failed to achieve the dream of entering an engineering
college, I decided to get away from the rat race and try something totally
different. A friend of mine who was already studying Mass Media from Wilson
College told me about this course and solely on the basis of a whim, I applied
for the course.
The biggest decision I made –
Taking this course was the first ever major decision I took
in my entire life. It was scary as hell and I have to say it was taken purely
on gut. I didn’t really know much about what I was getting into and boy I was
in for a shock. The disciplined, organised and orderly life I had learned to
live from a very early age while chasing the dreams of entering an IIT was
about to go for a toss and BMM was going to teach me to ride the waves and live
in the moment.
The best decision I made –
Doing BMM did have a lot of positive impact on my life. It was probably one of the best decisions I
have ever made. In just three years of the course I learned to live a life
completely opposite to the way I was raised. It involved last minute
presentations, ‘computer crashes’, ‘industrial visits’, overnight ‘project work’,
travel, chaos, broken hearts and not so sober presentations.
All this was a stark contrast to the life I lead before.
Life After BMM –
By the time I graduated from BMM, it had become a ‘cool’
course to do. There were tonnes of colleges that started offering BMM and a
million students who would be graduating in the following years. I believe my
batch was lucky with regards to the timing of graduation. Almost every one of
us got jobs and began our careers well.
Life Lessons from BMM –
You only know the value of a course when you have to put your
lessons to use. Academically, BMM made me a jack of all trades. We had 36
subjects and we gained surface level knowledge about each of them; totally
pointless if you ask me.
On the flipside however, it really helped me expand my point
of view and made me realise that nothing is finite or definite, unlike math
problems.
BMM introduced me to different horizons and helped me open my
mind to discovery. I truly started appreciating forms of expression across
multiple mediums.
That is in a sense, the BMM experience for me!
