Abnoudy
6th December, 2009
Lead in: Today, the history of AUC is remembered by the great effect it brought on its mass communication students. Our reporter Aya El Abnoudy has more.
MUSIC ( Fade out)
Looking through the glass they see a crowded round about known as Tahrir square, with the sun in their eyes; many thoughts pass through their minds. Quickly they exit their cars and rush through the American University’s Cairo downtown campus gates. This is where it all started. walking through its doors for the first time timid, hesitant, but somehow still full of hope.
Students come in two kinds, the kind that go into those gates with the mere hope of simply graduating. Maybe ending up with a career they like or one that is far dissimilar to their major even dreams.
Ultimately sometimes end up feeling like “nobody” s in the bigger picture of societal productivity. The other kind of students are initially similar yet develop very differently. From day one they strive to become better in everything they do, succeeding becomes a virtue, recognition a means, remembrance an end to making society a better haven. Those are not the figures destined for greatness, those are the figures who carved their futures by writing their own destiny.
The difference between both attitudes can be accounted to several reasons. Some of those are the lack of ambition, with no positive expectations from their college experience. Those are the ones who block out the education they receive and simply refuse to learn. whilst a select few actually want to do something influential with their lives.
Falling into the kind of students who go to college for the sake of graduating, is the quality of just graduating to get a typical job, creating a normal family, and working to support themselves and no one else. However, the other kind of students, the ones with hopes and dreams, are the ones who can not wait to graduate, in order to do something for those who taught and educated them and for the others who can not be educated at all. Also, you see them staying up all night, working hard, staying strong feeling like the world is collapsing around them; those are the ones who end up enjoying life. They even used to learn personal traits from their teachers as Ms. Badra explains,
Sound bite: Mrs. Shaimaa Badra
Back in the day, only 3 segments of Mass communication were offered. First was journalism, second was broadcasting in addition to Integrated marketing communication. Students who really worked hard flourished and proved themselves not only in university but among the whole society.
AUC is the only university in Egypt that requires its Mass communication students to take critical, scientific thinking as well as psychology and many other diverse courses throughout their years in AUC. These courses; if taken good advantage of , will leave a strong effect on the long run in terms of the students’ careers and also their personal lives.
Let me present to you a few examples of some of those people who walked through the same gates of AUC, with the typical negative attitude of the freshmen arriving each year, but worked to help those incapable of helping themselves. Those students are now the ever-flourishing figures that graduated from the Mass communication and now play significant roles in the daily lives of the Egyptians and the Arab world.
An example of success is Shaimaa Badra, who states how AUC and Mass Communication taught her a lot.
“Sound Bite: Critical thinking SB”
As mentioned in the AUC website, the mass communication department is recognized throughout the whole world by producing amazing and well-rounded graduates who play a major role of paramount importance in developing the region's print, advertising and broadcasting. Not only that, The Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research offers practical work for the undergraduates .
Sound bite : Mrs. Hamsa
It also gives courses to improve the students editing skills, studio management and electronic newsgathering. Another example of that successes is an IMC graduate Hazem Nasr,
Sound bite: Mr. Hazem
Communication and media arts cover a broad spectrum of critical perspectives on the media and introduces a range of contemporary media practices. The department's highly competitive integrated marketing communication major is a cross-disciplinary program that blends marketing education with advertising and graphic design skills.
With all the help and support AUC offers its hard working students, they finish university with good experience. It has been said as well that the Mass Communication graduates of AUC are very qualified in comparison to other students in the region to the extent that many of those graduates hold high positions internationally and locally.
Sound bite: Mrs. Shaimaa
Some graduates are now working in the news field in places like “CNN, The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, NBC, and Reuters, as well as playing key roles in the region's growing transnational media organizations, such as Al Jazeera, MBC, Dubai's Al Arabiya, Radio Sawa, Nile TV, MSNBC in Arabic and CNN Arabia“. Many of them helped in flourishing important newspapers in the region, such as Al Sharq Al Awsat, The Middle East Times, Al Ahram and Al Ahram Weekly. Alums include CNN's White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux, commentator and analyst Mona Eltahawy, senior producer and anchorman for CNBC Arabia Sami Zeidan and managing editor of Alam Al-Youm Lamees El Hadidy.
The Mass Communication program at AUC has also produced an influential generation of media researchers and professionals at universities.
Sound bite: Mr. Hazem
Thus, it is clear that the AUC influences the way of thinking and its students positively especially those ambition hard working ones. Mrs Badra mentioned that it’s because of the AUC she is where she is today
Shima sound bite : Shaimaa Badra
And when you see those students going out of those gates for the last time, you would find it hard to believe they were the same timid, hesitant individuals in the crowd, who are now our cultural leaders, they are our future.
Music (fade out)
Credits:
I would like to thank my interviewees
Mrs. Shaimaa Badra, Mr. Hazem Nasr, and Hamsa Rabiee
The sound track was the music of Jasey Rae.
The AUC website was a very influence source,http://www.aucegypt.edu/academics/dept/jrmc/Pages/default.aspx
Special thanks to Mohamed Anwar who helped me in the editing process.
Total Time: 11:30
No comments:
Post a Comment