AWARES 13- A JOURNEY DRAWING TO AN END.

It was mixed reactions yesterday from the class when Dr. Eugene Ohu asked if our expectations for deciding to participate in the Advanced Writing and Reporting Skills (AWARES) program have been met. The program will be ending in the next few days and it has been short (two and a half months), tasking, but very interesting and engaging. AWARES is one of the programs offered by the School of Media and Communications (SMC) of the Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos, which concentrates on helping students improve on their writing skills. It also focuses on proficiency in research and critical thinking. It is designed for media practitioners, public relations personnel, or professionals who want to enhance their writing skills.

The AWARES 13 class, of which I am a member, is a rich blend of 16 participants drawn from different sectors-media, Private and Corporate Organizations. Everyone begun the program with different expectations.  Some students said that their expectations for participating in the course had been met, some said it was more or less a refresher for them, while some others said that their expectations had not been fully met as they felt that the major beneficiaries were the journalists in our midst.  One of the women said that she would have wanted more industry captains in the media to come in and teach some of the modules, as this would have afforded a good opportunity for networking and having firsthand information on how the media works.

I registered for the program because I wanted to enhance my creative writing and reporting skills and I must say that I have enjoyed my time at the school. Not only has the course served as a refresher for me in so many ways, but it has also afforded me the opportunity to add to my field of knowledge as I have also been taught concepts in other subject areas that I find educative such as: Writing for the Web,Narrative and Expository Writing, Process/Report Writing, the Law and Abuses of the Media, Writing Readable Business Reports, and so many other topics. While it has been fun learning my parts of speech all over again, I have also enjoyed being more enlightened about economic concepts like: inflation, depression/recession, cost of capital, trade balance, economic indicators, and a host of other terms that I had once glossed over. If nothing else, I now realize more than ever, the important role that the media has to play in our polity in order to push for positive change in our country. It has been fun learning to design with the CorelDraw app and tinkering with pictures using adobe Photoshop. I even had to get someone to install both apps on my system so that I could practice more on my own in my spare moments.  

In Dr. Ohu’s words, the course is relevant for all attendees as there are lots of graduates who cannot write readable reports or letters, which is a shame. W all have to write at some point in the course of our work. It could be a business proposal, reports, minutes of meetings or writing for the web; but it is important that our presentation is professional and neat. It has been a fun two and a half months and I have no regrets at all and would not hesitate to recommend this course to everyone out there who is interested in writing effectively and efficiently.