The Placements Workshop: Opportunities, Skills and Requirements jointly organized by the Office of the Dean, School of Humanities and the Placement Guidance and Advisory Bureau, University of Hyderabad took place on 7th September, 2015 in the Humanities Auditorium. The one-day workshop was intended to deliver to the students of Humanities, avenues and opportunities for employment, skill-sets hirers look for in applicants, and the prospects within the fields of employment.
In the inaugural session, Prof. Panchanan Mohanty, Dean, School of Humanities talked about how employment within academia is limited and that it is necessary for students of the Humanities to look for fresh avenues of employment. Following his talk, Prof. Rajeev Wankar, Chairman, Placement Guidance and Advisory Bureau, addressed the gathering. He mentioned that this workshop was part of a series of initiatives, such as job-fairs, taken by the university to boost the employment opportunities of students.
The session that followed consisted of three talks which were delivered by industry experts in three fields – school-teaching, electronic media and radio. Ms Sudha Ramanan, Principal, International School, Hyderabad talked to the students about the skills required for school-teaching. She emphasized that school-teaching was a challenging career and demanded a great deal of passion and commitment. This was followed by an informative talk on career opportunities in the Telugu television industry by Ms MA Saraswathy, who works with TV9. Dr Mohd. Nayeem, Hindi and Urdu radio-show host spoke about the expanding radio network and the kinds of jobs that are available with All India Radio and private FM channels. He described the qualities required to become a competent radio jockey.
The afternoon sessions were taken by Mr MS Srinivas, Mr Sreenath Sreedharan, and Mr Mani Krishna, all alumni of the University of Hyderabad. Mr Srinivas, who is Manager, Technical Publications at Lattice Semiconductors, talked about technical writing as a profession, drawing upon his own experiences. Mr Sreedharan, an editor at Orient Blackswan, described the process involved in commissioning, editing, and publishing academic books, and the kinds of skills required to do them. The final speaker, Mr Krishna, is one of the founders of the educational content company Wings and Oars Media Communications. His talk covered different aspects of educational writing, concentrating on creating content for MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) like the MHRD’s e-PG Pathshala.
The day concluded with a vote of thanks by Mr Upender, Coordinator, PGAB. After each talk, there was a ten to fifteen minute question-and-answer session, in which students asked the experts for more details of the skills required for particular jobs, and for practical advice on how and where to apply for these jobs. And the end of the day, the students left with a better understanding of the kinds of jobs available to them, and with concrete plans for how to work towards getting and doing those jobs well.
-Shalini Srinivasan, Department of English