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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

12 questions media students must ask themselves when they are working as interns

1. Have I been able to get rid of the student mindset and develop a professional mindset? Will I be able to continue to think like a professional even after the internship ends and I return to college?

2. How important is it for me to read newspapers? Magazines? Books?

3. How important is it to have good speaking and writing skills?

4. How important is it to have people skills?

5. How important is it to be able to make intelligent conversation and develop genuine friendships with co-workers? How easy is it?

6. How important is it to be curious and ask interesting questions?

7. How important is it to take the initiative?

8. How important is it to be able to work under pressure?

9. How important is it to be able to meet deadlines?

10. How important is it to have breakfast every day (because I have no idea when my next meal will be)?

11. Has this internship helped me to discover my true calling? Or has this internship helped me realise that this particular field is not for me?

12. How has my college helped prepare me for this internship?

And perhaps the most important question of all (so let's make it a baker's dozen): AM I DOING ENOUGH TO ENSURE I GET A CALL-BACK WHEN I AM READY TO BEGIN WORKING FULL-TIME?
***
UPDATE (April 29, 2014)

Commitscion ATREYI DASGUPTA (Class of 2015),
who is in the midst of her internship
with Shree Venkatesh Films in Kolkata,
answers 12 questions media students must ask
themselves when they are working as interns 

1. Have I been able to get rid of the student mindset and develop a professional mindset? Will I be able to continue to think like a professional even after the internship ends and I return to college?
This internship has enabled me to shake off my student mindset and develop a professional mindset. Now I am sure I can work with a professional mindset even after the internship ends.

2. How important is it for me to read newspapers? Magazines? Books?
Reading on a regular basis is very important; it helps us to stay updated. Reading a newspaper every day is of paramount importance. It is reading that helps us to communicate with people intelligently, which, in turn, will help create a good impression about us.

3. How important is it to have good speaking and writing skills?
In the professional world, good speaking skills, I think, are much more important than writing skills. At every stage we have to communicate with our superiors as well as with those who are our subordinates. We have to learn to keep calm whatever the situation may be and sort out things using our communication skills. 

4. How important is it to have people skills?
We have to know how to talk to people and, when required, “manage” them and get them to do what we want, so people skills are essential.

ATREYI DASGUPTA STRIKES A POSE AS A "COMMITS TV" REPORTER.

5. How important is it to be able to make intelligent conversation and develop genuine friendships with co-workers? How easy is it?
If we are able to understand what will make our co-workers interested in talking or what topics they like to discuss and if we have a sound knowledge of the subject, then it becomes very easy to strike up an intelligent conversation. I would like to add here that if you can talk from your heart, making genuine friendships is not that difficult. 

6. How important is it to be curious and ask interesting questions?
It is imperative to be curious. Unless we ask questions and show our interest in relevant topics, no one will take us seriously. This is what I have learned during this internship. 

7. How important is it to take the initiative?
Taking the initiative is very crucial. We should always ask for work and complete the task assigned to us properly and in time. We should never lose hope and remain enthusiastic about all kinds of jobs given to us.

 8. How important is it to be able to work under pressure?
Working under pressure can be fraught with peril. We not only have to complete our projects in time but we also have to ensure work quality. This is something that we can learn to do with experience. 

9. How important is it to be able to meet deadlines?
We should never miss a deadline. “Missing a deadline is like a crime” — this is what my boss told me in the very first week here. 

10. How important is it to have breakfast every day (because I have no idea when my next meal will be)?
It is very important to have breakfast every day because the work schedule keeps changing from time to time.

 11. Has this internship helped me to discover my true calling? Or has this internship helped me realise that this particular field is not for me?
This internship has made me more determined to reach my goal. It has taught me that the path to success is not easy. I know now that I have to learn many more professional skills. And I also know I have a long way to go to achieve my ambition.

12. How has my college helped prepare me for this internship?
Commits has taught me to take the initiative, communicate clearly, treat work seriously but at the same time enjoy my work and not grumble about it. Commits has also taught me the importance of professionalism and the value of time (we should never be late at work). In addition, it has taught me to keep my cool at all times and deal with every situation calmly and with patience. Without Commits I could never have been what I am today. Commits has taught me not only how to survive in a professional environment but also how to thrive in it.
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Monday, April 14, 2014

How I know I am not alone in my fetish for books-1

I plan to go as I have lived: with a book in my hands. And not just any book by anybody. No, if there's one writer who can ease aeronautical timor mortis [the author is flying from Washington, D.C., to Chicago], it's Dr Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, Plum to his friends, and the creator of Jeeves, Psmith, Madeline Bassett, Uncle Fred and a body of fiction that has brought more joy to readers than even the Kama Sutra of Vatsayana. When angels in heaven want a book to read, they buy a paperback of The Code of the Woosters, then lean back into a cloudbank and sigh with pleasure over sentences like these:
"He, too, seemed disinclined for chit-chat. We stood for some moments like a couple of Trappist monks who have run into each other by chance at the dog races."

"Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French."

"Years before, and romantic as most boys are, his lordship had sometimes regretted that the Emsworths, though an ancient clan, did not possess a Family Curse. How little he had suspected that he was shortly to become the father of it."

— From "Weekend with Wodehouse", one of 46 essays written by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Michael Dirda for The Washington Post Book World and collected in Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments. Dirda was flying to Chicago to attend a convention of the P.G. Wodehouse Society. (By the way, I am also the proud possessor of another of Dirda's fine collections, Classics for Pleasure.)
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

I don't think I knew that poetry could be so... raw (and I was reading this over breakfast)

And Lord did I push, for three more hours
I pushed, I pushed so hard I shat,
Pushed so hard blood vessels burst
in my neck and in my chest, pushed so hard
my asshole turned inside out like a rosebud...

That is American poet Beth Ann Fennelly describing her daughter's birth in "Bite Me", the first poem in her collection, Tender Hooks.

And how did I happen to read this passage? I came across it this morning in Stuff I've Been Reading, by Nick Hornby, the celebrated author of About a Boy (which became a movie starring Hugh Grant), High Fidelity, and other works of fiction and non-fiction.

Hornby writes, by way of explanation, that he had met both mother and daughter briefly during a visit to Oxford, Mississippi, and "both of them seemed like the kind of people that one would like to know better". And then, a few days later, he read "Bite Me".


Hornby continues:

So I ended up feeling as though I knew them both better anyway — indeed, I can think of one or two of my stuffier compatriots who'd argue that I now know more than I need to know. (Is now the appropriate time, incidentally, to point out the main advantage of adoption?) If I had never met mother or daughter, then these lines would have made me wince, of course, but I doubt if they would have made me blush in quite the same way; maybe one should know poets either extremely well or not at all.

Stuff I've Been Reading is full of such unexpected insights and witty observations concerning books and authors, and, yes, poetry collections and poets. The writing is so smart that even the digressions into Nick Hornby's other obsession, football (and his favourite team Arsenal), are a delight to read.
  • Stuff I've Been Reading had been lying on my corner table along with other books that had been delivered recently by Amazon. Since I'm already reading a few other novels and non-fiction books, I put off opening Stuff I've Been Reading with great reluctance, but today seemed like a good day to delve into it. And the rewards were immediate. I call it instant gratification.
  • Nick Hornby writes a monthly column, in The Believer magazine, called "Stuff I've Been Reading". The book of the same name is a collection of those columns over the years. You can read an excerpt from the most recent column here.
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Monday, April 7, 2014

How to write an e-mail that will get you your dream internship (Hint: You need the three I's: interest, initiative, imagination)

Commitscion Tia Raina (Class of 2015) got a call back from India's top digital agency, Webchutney, three hours after she sent this e-mail:

From: Tia Raina
Date: 1 March 2014 8:34:25 IST
To: contact@webchutney.net, careers@webchutney.net
Subject: Do you need an awesome intern?

Good morning!

My name is Tia Raina and I'm a master's student at Commits, a media college located in HSR Layout. 

I've been looking to intern for 4-6 weeks this summer at an awesome digital agency (preferably in Bangalore, but Mumbai is great, too!). I DO have about 5 years of work experience as a writer (Journalism, Advertising, Marketing, you name it!) and my latest crush is digital. I've also recently volunteered for Social Media Week and was part of the top 20 tweeters, while juggling being a hub owner (emcee+organiser) at one of the locations.

I was wondering if you'd have any openings for interns anytime between 23rd March and June 15th?

I'm attaching my résumé, but just in case you need a quick link: here's my LinkedIn Profile.

Also, my Twitter handle and Blog link.

I'd love to intern at Webchutney, so do let me know as soon as you can! I'll be watching the phone (No. Really.).

Thanks for reading this email!

(Mobile number and other contact details)

TIA RAINA
Tia, who is the editor of the college newspaper, says, in all modesty, that the quick response "may have partly been because I followed all the guidelines they mentioned on the website. :)"

Yes, but I happen to think that other, perhaps more important, factors were at play here. Her e-mail indicates that she is media- and tech-savvy, she has good writing skills, and she is someone who likes to take the initiative.

Tia also comes across as a smart young woman, a fun person, a self-motivated worker. In short, every company's dream employee.

Who would not want such a lively, intelligent personality on board?

  • It will be worth every job-seeker's while to also check out the Webchutney guidelines that Tia is referring to. Here are the important points from the "HowTo" page on the agency's website (What a sassy come-on: "Work for us. Join the debauchery."):
Covering notes are cool

The art of the résumé

Social, woshal and all that!

We are like those attention seeking whores

Subject Lines can make or break you

Apply for a position that's (at least) related to what we do

Read the complete document here: "HOWTO: Careers".

And here you can read Tia Raina's blog post on her favourite city: "My Love-Letter to Mumbai".
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An inspiration to writers everywhere

A tribute — in the form of a "puzzler" — to the writer of one of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors, whose weekly e-newsletter I receive every Sunday:


HOPE BEGINS IN THE DARK

By Dr Mardy Grothe

On April 10, 1954, this writer was born in San Francisco (she turns 60 this week). Her father was a full-time writer and an avid reader, and she acquired both passions at an early age. As a second-grader, she was thrilled when one of her poems won an award in a statewide poetry competition and was later published in a mimeographed anthology.

She struggled with a host of problems during adolescence, but continued to dream of a literary career.  She dropped out of college at age nineteen, hoping to write the great American novel, but ending up instead in a variety of low-level jobs.

She continued to force herself to write almost every night for the next few years.

And then, at age twenty-three, her father was diagnosed with brain cancer. He told her to pay attention during his illness, and also to take notes, adding, "You tell your version, and I am going to tell mine." He ultimately became too sick to write his own story, but three years later, she published Hard Laughter (1980), a novel based in part on his illness. Her father died a year before the book was published.

In 1986, she became a highly unconventional born-again Christian (liberal, feminist, and pro-choice), got clean and sober, and began to take her life and career more seriously.

OUR MYSTERY AUTHOR WITH OPRAH WINFREY.

In 1993, she achieved her first commercial success with Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year. A fiercely honest and occasionally very funny memoir about life as a single mother, the book had a modest initial press run of 7,000 copies, but became a surprise bestseller.

In 1994, she wrote another bestseller, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I received it as a gift many years ago, and it continues to be one of my favourite books.

Like her earlier Operating Instructions book (and her many later ones), Bird by Bird is filled with disarming self-revelations and charming self-deprecating humour.

It is also a deeply personal work, containing many insights and lessons learned. In the book's Introduction, she reflected on her early years as a struggling writer, and especially about the many times she would force herself to write at night after working all day at an exhausting and unfulfilling job. She wrote:

   Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just
    show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.

Who is this woman?


Now you know!
  • A copy of this highly useful book, which is filled with practical advice, has been placed in the Commits library.
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Sunday, April 6, 2014

Why I absolutely loved "Queen" (a Facebook conversation)... and Chetan Bhagat's column in today's ToI

Ramesh Prabhu
March 26
A COMING-OF-RAGE MOVIE LIKE NO OTHER

If more Hindi films are made like "Queen", I'll watch every one of them. I swear. Mummy-daddy ka promise.


AND HERE'S CHETAN BHAGAT WRITING ABOUT QUEEN IN TODAY'S TIMES OF INDIA:
There are hidden messages in the movie, perhaps more than the makers even intended. One, we have trapped our women. We think we care for them, but we suffocate them in the name of security, safety, morality, tradition or culture. We are not comfortable with an Indian woman expressing herself. A woman has to be a good daughter, sister or wife. It isn’t enough for her to be just, well, herself. In some ways, they endure disguised slavery. In the civilized, developed world, where women have choices, they do not choose to live like this. Every girl in India deserves a journey of self-discovery like Rani. 

Well said, Mr Bhagat! Bravo!
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