ENG369: A 4 week-long summer course

Last year, shortly after the July Uprising, the Department of English and Humanities (ENH) of Brac University hosted a seminar featuring Tasneem Khalil (Editor-in-Chief, Netra News). He discussed the importance of free press in the then-new Bangladesh. Towards the end of the session, Khalil announced that he is working with the ENH department to develop a journalism course. One year later, that announcement came into fruition.

“ENG369: Public Interest Journalism” was a summer-intensive course that ran through the beginning of the summer semester to mid-July. Classes were conducted on the weekends. Fridays saw 4 hour-long lectures, focusing on one specific element of public interest journalism, while Saturdays entailed 5 hour-long workshops. Most students enrolled for their love of journalism, while others were intrigued by the prospect of spending their weekends at the campus. 

For four straight weeks, Khalil, Aaqib Md. Shatil (Special Correspondent, Netra News), and Mohammad Zaki Rezwan (Lecturer, ENH) engaged students in the ethics of public interest journalism. The course ended with students becoming journalists themselves, as they prepared their own investigative projects. Zafna Mostafiz (Junior, ENH) says, “I liked how the course made me think outside-the-box, because of how ‘out-there’ journalism itself is. It contrasted well with my other media courses.”

Not all of it was smooth sailing however, as the intense nature of this course was sometimes fatiguing. Maisha Marium (Senior, ENH) says, “A summer intensive course does not lend well to our tri-semester system. It should return as a regular course next time.” And it will return, as Khalil says, “Besides 369, we are thinking of offering more extensive courses in the future.”

ENG369 instilled journalistic integrity within the students, which is achieved through maintaining ethics, and loyalty to the public. Students learned the basics of investigative storytelling, and how to make the ‘significant’ a bit more ‘interesting.’