MY MEMOIRS OF AWARES 13 CLASS

“Education contributes to an individual’s journey toward self reliance and independence. Such is my testimony of  the learning experience I had at Pan Atlantic University.

AWARES class 2013 is more than just a course, it is an opportunity of a lifetime for me as a person; that I will not trade for anything. Just as important as the professional experience and portfolio development was, it was also an avenue to be a part of an exceptional school that has created a lasting legacy for organizations and individuals who are making incredible contributions to the local community.

Dialogue between teachers and students are of consistently high quality. The various sessions had different facilitators, whereby the teacher asked questions, challenges responses, provides authoritative comments, and managed the discussion.

Below is a summary of the 20 days spent at the Pan Atlantic University: Barrister Vincent took us through five legal means of curbing media abuse.

• Privacy Law

• Obscenity Law

• Sedition Law

• Defamation Law

• Copyright Law

He noted that though the media is a powerful tool for achieving a great deal, it can easily become a vehicle for abuse.

 Prof Emevwo Biakolo delved into some elements of rhetoric and argumentation and logical terminologies. He identified the characteristics of arguments as:

Clarity of thought

Logical connection between data/evidence/premises and conclusion

Serious intention to persuade the reader to adopt our viewpoint

The issue is always controversial. That means there must be more than one point of view or differences of opinion about the issue

The language of argument is usually strong or even emotional but emotions often overwhelm logic.

 Richard O. Ikiebe, one of the facilitators, also taught us the knit-gritty of beat reporting; he listed the core principles of beat reporting as follows:

Ø  Be Prepared

Ø  Be Known

Ø  Be Alert

Ø  Be Persistent

Ø  Be There

Ø  Be Wary

Josef Bel-Molokwu’s class was one of the most impactful classes for me at the certificate course.He discussed extensively on the structure of news,particularly-the 5Ws and H i.e :

The who

The where

The what

The when

And the How

The erudite professor also gave a thorough brief on the structure of news sources. These are:

Interviewing

Personal observation

Reasoning it out

Coverage

Interpretation

Analysis

Tip-offs

and learning to manage all these above mentioned well.

Michael Chidubem and Ken Esere- the dynamic duo of visual designs were something else! An insightful class indeed! In this class we learnt all elements of designs; from the lines to colour pallets-texture-typography-spacing to shadowing. There was so much to learn in this remarkable class. Ken Esere revealed to us the intricacies of the visual design and the editor; what an attention grabbing session it was!

How can I ever forget Isah Momoh’s interviewing techniques and Mr. Eugene’s notes on writing for the web? I never had interest in blogging but Mr. Eugene made me to take a second thought.

When it comes to learning grammar; you can never go wrong with Dr.Obiaya! To me, this was the most captivating class for me. The structure and order sentence, comma lapses, punctuations, run on sentences, writing as communication. e.t.c. All of these has changed my way of putting my sentences together.

Overall, the quality of learning at Pan Atlantic University is unique!