Media School Bayern: A Surprisingly Leafy Tree
Media . Student lifeThe road towards the media school Bayern was covered by leafy trees. It was a sunny, quiet Thursday morning. The sunlight poured through the gaps in the leaves and shone down on us, a group of future journalists. Firstly surprised by the far location, I then revelled in the greenery.
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Andre Wengenroth, the creative producer of the media school Bayern, showed us the way in. During the excursion, he patiently answered all kinds of questions, surprising me several times. It seems that though globally the market of journalism is a poor soil now, there is still a leafy tree flourishing in Bayern.
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Surprise 1: a workplace dedicated to providing students with practical opportunities
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The first surprise started before the excursion. I found from the official website that the school is free for students who want to learn journalism skills. It was confirmed by Andre in his opening speech. “You can try us for free and we will teach you one year to help you be a better journalist. You can work in the radio shows, podcasting, TV shows, and so on.”
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The studio for the podcasting
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Later, he guided us through all these workplaces. The scenes reminded me of one course I had back in my home university. In that workshop, we chose from different forms of journalism to attempt, for example, documentary production. However, it was only one course that we could take for two semesters. For becoming a journalist, this was far from satisfaction. We had to find other internships to enrich ourselves, which was relatively difficult to accomplish nowadays.
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Therefore, I was amazed that Bayern had a school dedicated to providing people who want to learn journalism opportunities to practice their skills. After all, if you want to be a journalist, knowledge from the textbooks is not enough. Only constantly practicing the actual work can help you reach perfection. “This might be one of our biggest advantages over the university. After some basic lessons, it is all about hands-on work.” Andre admitted. The school is even free, thoughtfully considering the targeted groups are students or young people just entering the society.
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Surprise 2: A Neverland that has not been hit by streaming
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Before the visit, I envisaged in my mind several difficulties that the school might face. One of them was that it may be hit by streaming, since now everybody can take online courses on platforms like YouTube. Surprisingly, this does not happen in the media school Bayern.
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The studio for the TV show
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“I think for us the circumstance is even better because people who want to try journalism wish to have a place to do it.” Andre hit the nail on the head. Though streaming is affecting the popularity of journalism majors in traditional universities, practical schools like media school Bayern will simply stand out. They are never on the same track. Purely imparting knowledge is against the core of journalism. People will always need a workplace to practice what they have learned from the class, whether they first had the courses in offline or online classes.
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Surprise 3: a clean state of freedom
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The thing that surprised me the most must be the full freedom the school gives to the students. Andre emphasized several times that here students are allowed to do what they want and do not have to consider the ratings. “The enterprises that sponsor us also don’t want anything from us, let alone interfere with our daily work,” he explained.
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Seeing all the students gathering in the workspace and preparing for their programs, I could not help to develop a sense of envy. Back in the news agency of my home university, we have to consider many elements when deciding a topic to write about. Readerships, seriousness, political correctness…… It must feel wonderful to produce something I am interested in, regardless of how many people will read it or if somebody will feel unhappy about it.
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The television studio
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Still, as the source of funding, some enterprises do want the school to provide employers for them. But compared with the freedom in content, it is acceptable. The school also has to obey the ethics of journalism, which is out of the question.
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The last little surprise Andre provided for me is a canvas bag that has the school’s name in it and several useful stuffs for journalists within. I was pretty certain that if I could stay in Munich for a longer time, I would try to study here for some time.
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When we left the building, the sun was still shining, and the green trees swayed gently in the breeze. Surely they would grow even stronger shortly.