Ad(d)vantage course

Swati Rai

College education has come a long way from theoretical, bookish water-tight compartmentalisation of knowledge. Matching step with the changing times, UGC has introduced a flexible system of certificate/diploma/advanced diploma programme, which run parallel to the conventional BA, BCom. and BSc. degrees, also called 'Add-On'courses. These courses are career and market-oriented, skill enhancing add-on streams, that have utility for job, self-employment and empowerment of students. Some of the indicative courses suggested by UGC are, for Science stream - Information and Computer technology, Refrigeration, Biotechnology, Hospital Waste Disposal Management and Sericulture etc. For the Social Sciences and Humanities streams -  the courses are of inter-disciplinary nature viz. Applied Sociology, Applied Psychology, Tourism, Fashion Designing, Translation Proficiency, Television and Video Production. For the Commerce stream, courses could be in Insurance, Banking, e-Commerce World Trade, Foreign Exchange Trade, Retailing etc. The courses offered are of inter-disciplinary nature. Here are the current trending couses and details: 

Communicative English 

The course aims at enhancing communication skills of the student and making them ready to face oral, vocal and also writing challenges of the real work life. Personality development also forms part of this course and making the students ready to fulfill communicative needs of the workplace- from writing emails, drafting reports to answering professional telephone calls. In this particular course aspects of communication such as, phonetics, stress, intonation, enunciation is also taught. Jasmine Anand, Assistant Professor of English

MCM, DAV elaborates, “The course's focus is on pronunciation, dialogue delivery in various situations and on various occasions both formal and informal, apart from dialect, register, and vocabulary of target language. The students not only learn accurate way but also appropriate way along with aesthetics of language. The course enables the students to garner entry level options as freshers ranging from, editing, content writing and public-interface professions.”  

Being not so progressive, this region benefits greatly from such a course. The course enables our students to gain exposure to the nuances of language use and usage. It enables them to face communicative needs of a workplace effectively    

Professor Shiv Sethi, head, functional english department, dev samaj college for women, ferozepur

Video Reporting 

In the hyper connected world of today, video reporting ahs gained momentum. The students having video reporting as an add-on courses can opt for mass communication in their master's programme (available in the college) and thereby have better employment prospects. Television journalism is a highly competitive as well as exciting and dynamic field in mass communication. This course attracts students who visualise themselves as television reporters, anchors, video producers, video editors, cameramen, scriptwriters and directors. 

'The content of video reporting course includes introduction to the concept of journalism and news; history, functioning and organisation of  Doordarshan and other TV channels; different genres of TV programmes like news, interviews, documentaries, discussions, etc.; functioning of video camera including knowledge of camera shots, movements and angles; principles of writing for TV; introduction to microphones; video lighting; video production, including the process of pre-production, production and post-production; video editing, etc. 

Add-On courses run on credits system and any field trip, workshop exposure is supervised for quality control and standardisation ensuring quality in college as well as real-life work situation.