Convocation held at Amity

Students of the fifth batch of the Amity School of Communication (ASCO), Noida, recently, had a dream date with their destiny. After all, it was their convocation day. A day when they received their hard-earned diplomas and the day of parting with their alma mater and batchmates.
Guests of Honour on the occasion were Syeda Imam, former National Creative Director of J Walter Thompson and Sanjeev Srivastava, India correspondent, BBC News.They awarded diplomas to 93 students of the advertising and journalism streams. The Beat, an in-house magazine conceptualised and produced by ASCO students was released by Srivastava.
Priyanka Nair and Nidhi Arora bagged the top honours for journalism and advertising respectively. Addressing the students, Srivastava spoke of the sea change the media industry has undergone since the days of typewriter and longhand. His advice to the budding journalists was to use simple language for effective communication. "The writing should be so simple that even a child may read and understand it," he added.
Imam addressed the 93 stars of the day who were stepping out of their cocoon. About advertising world, she said "The students who had opted for the stream had made a very far-sighted decision. As it''s a life without routine, advertising is a demanding job, but it''s a job which can change lives too."
Her advise to budding copywriters was that they have the power to shape the society-be they vulgarise it, brutalise it or help it to a higher level. As the job is about highlighting the truth "don''t take shortcuts and don''t make excuses".
Loud cheers went up when Rahul Agarwal, an alumnus of the school was honoured. Rahul had won the CNN Best Young Journalist Award (Asia) in 2004 for his news report, Dead Men Walking, which highlighted how government land records were being tampered by greedy relatives to grab the land of 10,000 villagers in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, by falsly showing them as dead.
Atul Chauhan, president, Ritnand Balved Educational Foundation (RBEF) appreciated the efforts of the students. Giving them food for thought he asked them to design a print advertisement for ASCO, out of which the best advertisement selected will be published in the national dailies with the name of the winning student.
Ashok K Chauhan, Founder President, RBEF congratulated students on their achievement and encouraged them to think globally. "Indians are blessed with intuition, instinct, sixth sense, gut feel, which are very important in professions like journalism and advertising," he remarked.