As the premier school for strategic management and communication, MICA has always strived to stay relevant in terms of its curriculum. The subjects taught at MICA – right from Day 1, until the students step out into the corporate world – are tailored to help think beyond the obvious, reject pre-existing perceptions and build worldviews. This series aims to build familiarity to the concept of a day at MICA, specifically in the classroom.
Semiotics
Students at MICA require an understanding of communications systems to recognize the communication network as being meaningful and inter-connected. The course on Semiotics helps them understand that all aspects of their professional engagements – marketing, finance, retail, advertising, technology – need to be addressed as linkages within a larger discourse of social and cultural ideology. Semiotics helps them to see beyond ‘models’ and brings in the important focus on culture and agency. By learning to actually ‘analyze’ and engage with methods through semiotic theory, students learn to appreciate the layers of meaning within these texts, the sub-texts, and how each of these influence one another within different contexts of usage. They learn that cultures are dynamic and require to be understood from different perspectives. Theoretical inputs help them see that culture and communication systems can be addressed from varied vantage points and in order to appreciate theory, analytical methods must be applied.Speaking about the course, Professor Harmony Siganporia said, “I’ve said before, only half-facetiously, that semiotics is an extremely arrogant field of study: it thinks of itself as a master science, which seeks to locate how meaning enters (and circulates in) societies. For everyone from advertising agencies to MR organisations working on cultural research, semiotics is the buzz-word of the moment, but most practitioners don’t seem to understand just how vast its ambit actually is, with its links to futurology. As a method, semiotic analysis reverses conventional ideas about consumer insight mining entirely, and this makes it a powerful tool to have in any aspiring marketer’s arsenal.
In class, the endeavour is to try and ground my students in as rigorous a theoretical training as I think is necessary for them to become truly thinking - and cutting-edge - practitioners able to carry out work suffused with a semiotic sensibility.”
PGP-2 student, Madhur Agarwal, was all praises for the course, stating how the knowledge of semiotic theory helped her with her assigned project during her summer internship, as her work largely revolved around insight mining and understanding consumers.
Research Methodology
Among the subjects offered in Term 2 is Research Methodology, an intensive course that aims to provide deep understanding of research techniques and different approaches to understanding reality. This course helps prepare students to undertake independent research study by deconstructing a given management problem and translating the same to suitable research problems. This course, taught by three eminent faculty members – Kallol Das, Ashutosh Dutt and Shailesh Yagnik – is instrumental in enabling the identification, application, and execution of appropriate research design given the research problems at hand. Moreover, on completion of the course, students are able to distinguish amongst the different research methods, be aware of the specific tools and their relative roles and limitations.
The areas of study covered under this course entail:
1. Research problem formulation, research question, and hypothesis formulation
2. Research process, research design, and sampling
3. Measurement and instrumentation
4. Planning for analysis
Research Methodology is a significant course for MICAns who go off for summer internships at the end of first year, where they are met with roles that require quantitative and qualititative research. Pragya Mehra, a PGP2 student fresh out of her internship stated how she was able to translate her classroom learning to tackle real-life marketing issues faced by the company she worked with, often gaining praise for her meticulous approach.
PGP-1 student Apurva Bhinda spoke about the course as well, “In each lecture we delve into understanding psychology and culture until we start to see things as common sense. There is no better feeling than uncovering a sharp insight, and we are lucky to have such accomplished faculty teaching us how to do so.”
Describing his course, Professor Das said, “ The research methodology course is designed to strengthen the critical thinking and analytical abilities of students besides acquainting them with important research tools and techniques. The larger purpose is to equip them with required knowledge and skills that can help them take better business decisions as future managers and entrepreneurs.
As a faculty, I hope that the course instills a strong sense of curiosity among the participants to better understand the world around and makes them capable enough to search for the answers independently. ”
Digital Marketing and Transformative Frameworks
The world of digital media is changing at a phenomenal pace. Its constantly evolving technologies, and the way people are using them, are transforming not just how we access our information, but how we interact and communicate with one another on a global scale. It’s also changing the way we choose and buy our products and services. People are embracing digital technology to communicate in ways that would have been inconceivable just a few short years ago. Digital technologies are no longer the preserve of tech-savvy early adopters, and today ordinary people are integrating them seamlessly into their everyday lives.
In the developed world internet access is becoming practically ubiquitous, and the widespread availability of wireless connectivity means that people are now going online daily to do everything from checking their bank statement, to shopping for their groceries, to playing games. What makes this digital revolution so exciting is that it’s happening right now. As future marketers who are living through it, and we have a unique opportunity to jump in and be part of this historical transition.
Every marketer in the digital age will be expected to understand what is possible, achievable, affordable and effective within the digital channels. Internet marketing is evolving into a highly specialized discipline. It shares many of the core elements found in conventional direct marketing – media, messaging, planning, database management, CRM, segmentation and fulfilment with the added twist of new technologies, tools and techniques that deliver extended capabilities and greater business opportunities.
First year student, Abhishek Paul had this to say, “The landscape of digital media is changing every day but the core rules remain the same. The fascinating discussions we have in class cement our marketing sense while updating our knowledge base regularly. Our projects and assignments also give us a deeper understanding of how things actually work.”
The classes, usually highly interactive, include a mix of theoretical & practical discourse and focus on trying to develop an understanding of the way search engines work, the ways to optimize content and webpage design for better rankings. Additionally students are familiarized in monitoring & tracking techniques/tools to measure performance.
Associate Dean and faculty for the course, Prof. Siddharth Deshmukh is excited for the endless possibilities digital marketing opens up to MICAns, “Its not about being prepared for working and living in a digitally enabled world. Its about shaping that world to suit your work and life. We are at a place where we have that choice- to shape or be shaped.”
AnyBodyCanDraw
Crafting Creative Communication or CCC, a course that creates intrigue in most minds when it comes up, is a programme specially designed for people who want to pursue a career as Ideators. Today, the need is for conceptual thinkers who are also ‘executors’. In other words, Ideators are more than just copywriters, art directors, designers, TV commercials makers or even web designers. At MICA, CCC folk are the ones you’ll see running around with cameras and sketchbooks, lugging easels and in general having a ball.
His intention behind starting this course was to make his students start seeing the world from different perspectives, rejecting the set patterns and colours that are considered the norm. In an ABCD class you will never hear the words proportion or line quality because at MICA we strive to learn the difference between seeing and looking. ABCD or Any Body Can Draw is a session that takes the learning out of the classroom, to the green surroundings of MICA. Ask Mr. Pravin Mishra, Head of CCC, and you’ll hear about the detrimental effects conventional art classes have on children who are just starting to learn how to express their creativity.
“Ask them to draw something they like, and 15/20 students will bring you the same generic scenery with triangular mountains and a winding river – and for that matter why should a mountain always be brown? Who decides?”, complains Mishra.
A student attending the ABCD session spoke about her inhibitions as well, “We usually do all our work on digital platforms, for some reason the act of putting pen to paper is now a very intimidating idea. Sir wants to inculcate a culture of sketching within the class and we’re excited to see what comes out of this session. We’ve been given autonomy to conduct sessions on our own, so all of us will conduct one session where we can pick a theme and work around it. Today’s theme for instance is portraits.”
ABCD sessions take place 2-3 times a week depending on the students’ schedules. So far it has been a resounding success with even PGP students joining the CCC folk in their early morning sketching sessions.