By Jude Michael
Students in higher institutions have been exhorted to shun the distractions and allures of campus life and concentrate on the reason they gained admission which is to study hard in order to graduate with good grades. The Editor-in-Chief of Fides Newspaper, Jude Atupulazi, gave this advice while speaking as a keynote lecturer at a programme organized by the Association of Mass Communication Students (ASOMAC) of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Wednesday.
Atupulazi, who shared his experiences in his university days with the students, identified what he called campus romance as among the greatest distractions facing many students and warned that if not shunned, such could lead to regrettable experiences for them.
Noting that the school environment was not a place for students to get unofficially married by living with the opposite sex in their hostels, Atupulazi said anyone involved in that faced the possibility of having a bleak future as they would not be able to concentrate.
He advised the students to rather dedicate themselves to their studies, noting that forming study groups of four or five students was one way of achieving good results.
Atupulazi, a one-time Best Journalist in Anambra State, tasked the students to broaden their knowledge by reading newspapers and listening to news. His words, ‘Newspapers are not something you use to wrap suya. They contain information you should grasp. Conversely, you don’t watch CNN or BBC just to see pictures of people dying in Gaza and then be shedding crocodile tears. Watching news is beyond that.’
He also charged them to be attentive in class and be asking questions without being shy, noting that those who regularly asked questions were not likely to forget the answers they were given.
‘As a Mass Communicator, you don’t have to be an ignoramus. Be alive to your environment, know what is trending. This way, whether as a print or electronic journalist, you can write or discuss issues intelligently.
‘Imagine being a TV or radio presenter and you have a guest on your programme but can’t come up with trending issues to discuss. You will only be boring your audience and in these days of many TV channels and radio stations, your audience will just change stations. While interviewing someone, you’re acting on behalf of your reader or viewer who cannot ask questions,’ Atupulazi explained, further telling the students to be their own inspiration as the country was too brutal and impatient to inspire anyone.
He concluded by telling them various opportunities open to them as Mass Communication students and told them to consider them in order to be gainfully employed after school.
The Fides Editor-in-Chief thanked the organizers for coming up with such a programme and hoped the students would benefit from it.
