Taking fun a little seriously

HYDERABAD: End of the semester examinations in November-December signals the beginning of the college fest season. Synonymous with fun and skipping a few classes with due licence, the fests also help students realize their latent skills to make a career out of it.For Jonathan Drainard, events at Loyola college meant being in-charge of the sound arrangement.“Though I completed postgraduation in music production and graduated in mass communication, I was always interested in mixing music and making programmes for radio.My experience at college nurtured the sound engineer in me,” observes the audio-consultant who works for a home automation and solutions company in the city, Uber Projects.Interested in music production, Jonathan believes that the hands-on experience helped him understand the technicalities.Working behind the scenes to get the show going has its share of rewards, says Ruchi, an alumni of St.Francis college for Women who volunteered to handle communications in multiple events.“During my interview at Google, I had the added advantage as my profile established me as a team player,” says Ruchi who observes that working in a team of 20 people does not unfaze her though each member has a different style of working.At a time when tempers fly readily, the devil is in the details and effective organization takes the centrestage.The skills of organization involved in putting the show together compelled Anantha Krishna and his friends from CSIT to form an event management organization.Part of a college band, they decided to form an event management company of their own to organize their gigs.“Playing at different college fests and in varied set ups gave us the idea to form a group of our own.We organize each detail for a show, from sponsors to sound systems,” says the student of Architecture.Learning the ropes of management and effective communication need not be a part of the curriculum, as these students have discovered.Some do it to build a stronger resume while others do so for the heck of it.