Being a faculty for three years has probably taught me more about academics and education than 12 + 4 + 1 years of formal education. This is me, one of the youngest faculty members at my university sharing my experience of Modus 2021, the annual student work and talent showcase of the School of Communication Design at UID, KU.
What the world outside does not understand is that pure academics like teaching in class is only 40% of the work that academicians actually do. For the rest of the time, we are either working for the admin or with the admin (if you know what I mean). For us who take classes and interact with 100+ students every day, getting to know an individual and mapping their core strengths and weaknesses become a challenge. After all how many people can you know all at once? My University is a mini India, it has students and faculties from all parts of the country coming together in this heterogeneous mix of culture and uncommon interests. So do you think that conducting a fest can be an unimaginable challenge? Well, conducting a fest with 400+ students with 1 week of preparation time is almost unimaginable right? We did just that!
The fest was conceptualized 4 years ago and we just finished the 3rd instalment of MODUS 2021 from 18th Nov to 19th Nov 2021. A whole year of lockdown and work from home had super-motivated some students while others never knew what a fest is as they never got to their physical classrooms, thanks to Covid.?
I am not here to preach or create an SOP for tests in college. These are merely my learnings, understanding and realizations from the past few days. I am here to speak about my leanings from a fest like Modus as a faculty. These are learning that no formal education prepared me for.?
- Learning 1: Keep your cool under stressful circumstances. As a faculty, it is very important to maintain a positive ‘can-do’ attitude throughout. Everybody is looking up to you to come in as a saviour. Losing your cool means an emotional drain for both you and your team which costs both time and resources. I have students who are dealing with a lot of personal and professional crises and yet they stayed out every day to work on projects. It is important to acknowledge their hard work and put your trust in them so that they can build their trust in you.?
- Learning 2: Realise individual skills of students and motivate them to hone those very skills. A wrong person in the wrong group can cause a lot of chaos. While some students are great with their skills others might be good at team building. It is on you to have directors and artists together where there is mutual respect for each other.?
- Learning 3: If your students know you trust them, they tend to work harder to keep your trust. Giving room to your students to explore beyond the strict purview of academics is important while conceptualizing displays.?
- Learning 4: Saying ‘It is definitely possible’ helps in the middle of the journey. This helped me a lot in achieving goals faster than I thought of.?
- Learning 5: Deal with failures and think of alternatives immediately. Failures are normal as during the conceptual phase, especially in a design college a lot of ideas are just on paper. When it starts to come out and take individual forms practical barriers like issues with geometry, logistics & become a problem This also includes you being the councillor to an individual who has suddenly lost track in the middle and is at the risk of bringing the whole team down. Keeping a fixed timeline in mind and the maximum slack one can cut greatly helps.?
- Learning 6: Being a team player. Allowing peers to cultivate a more comforting feeling among them. This helps in building a strong team with different talents coming together. Make sure that the team has a director who can bring the team together, an expert who can get the technicals right, some designers who can hone their skills & an artist who can visualize the final event.?
- Learning 7: Letting go of things and situations which does not create a very strong impact. Now, this is the toughest because once you let a part go you also have to let the people working on that part project go. Reshuffling and mobilizing teams are very important if you have to get the job done fast. I tried keeping the greater good in mind but had a hard time saying ‘No’ in the middle of the project.?
- Learning 8: Be prepared to innovate at the last moment. Failures will come, that’s it, just be prepared. You are you because you can innovate. To prove your existence and keep ideas ready to be showcased.?
- Learning 9: Be the motivator while people are working under pressure. I for one did not exactly believe in the concept of external motivation until now. I find that a simple ‘you can do it’ goes a long way.?
- Learning 10: Before work starts, ask yourself if the final outcome is possible. If the answer is ‘YES’ then remain confident no matter what others says.?
So Yes! After 4 nights of no sleep and over 50 cups of coffee, we were able to pull off Modus. It was a fulfilling journey. Work is nothing but simply work for all of us.?