Friday, February 13, 2009

dNYel's Big Day

dNYel's big day has finally come to an end. All the running around the past few weeks and the last spurt of frenzied activity over the past few days have come to quite a satisfactory conclusion, and I can finally look at this weekend with only "dinner" pencilled onto the calendar.

We themed Get Ed! day to focus on the mass media industry. We roped in speakers and guests from the press (broadcast and print), media academics (local and foreign), a local activist blogger, a psych, the Authorities, and a couple of other media interest groups to discuss industry issues in "breakout sessions" with the whole college. A local talk radio station set up a forum in LT3 to chat about "advertising", broadcast 'live' on air; while on our part I was thoroughly impressed with Madam A who ran with my idea for her to host a talk show (I once had a convincing vision of her as a talk show host and I spoke aloud about it) and she went whole hog, interviewing the queen of TV talk shows, Diana S, herself, on the "Terror Blanks Show" which she hosted in LT2.

Me, I got my own shot as Jeopardy! host, sans Sean Connery and his shenanigans, fortunately.

Why am I writing so much detail? 'cos I've been tasked to do a write-up of the event's more innovative aspects for Kevin's committee, and I need to remind myself who to interview for their side of the story.

In what was to become a very long day, we had reps from the three Universities' admissions boards to discuss entry requirements with the kids and their parents in the evening. We are very gratified that the Unis themselves have spoken on the issue that good grades are definitely not enough to guarantee entry. Rather, applicants need qualifying grades but must "stand out from the crowd" through their personalities, their activities outside of the curriculum, and their general and current affairs knowledge in one or more interviews with the Unis they are applying to.

This is good to hear because this is exactly what our GP programme aims to train the kids in. We feel much more validated now. 

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