By Hauwa Isa Dogo
With sadness, I respectfully write to advise the potential and graduate students of Mass Communication about the positive potency of being practicable in their respective fields of specialisation before or after graduating. Instead of remaining stagnant without practice—despite acquiring the certificate and the knowledge consumed in school, one could sadly find a Mass Communication graduate who cannot compose a paragraph of composition. This is quite sad, I must say.
However, many governmental and non-governmental agencies attend the newspaper pages where people’s opinions are published to see the possibility of hiring professional and consistent writers with expertise in their respective fields—Mass Communications in question.
Sadly, most of the time, the space purposely reserved for publishing people’s views is flooded with writers not specialised in mass communication. And that prevents field professionals from having the chance of being hired or employed by the organisations above.
Why shouldn’t they—the mass communication professionals—always live according to their area’s customs by actively practising their field of expertise to promote their area of creativity? This sounds like a mechanism for playing with their already-acquired certificates while their country needs them!
Therefore, I encourage—though challenging—you to wake up and work with reality by heeding my word of caution.
Hauwa Isa Dogo wrote from the Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri.