Aarti Nair

As I was choosing to go back to and pursue further education after 6 years of work experience, there was no way I could have gone for a generic course on communication or mass media. I wanted to go back to University because I wanted to fill a void about not knowing enough about communication, specifically within non corporate settings. How can communication drive social enterprises/movements/organizations? I had burning questions within me. This MA Global Communication & Development was as specific as it could get!

Let me start with saying this, my course at Loughborough University London, has made me a better person. I think that is truly powerful. It is as if it changed my vision of social action, what effective communication is, and what is happening in this landscape across the globe. I could see beyond India/South Asia. Today, as I work for an organization with a global mission, the experience of this course serves as a guiding light in various everyday decisions.

Alongside this, I was lucky to meet and befriend colleagues from all across the globe who understand and see communication just like I do. And I still have this community at my perusal.

This course was, by far, one of the most enjoyable educational experience for me. It is perhaps because I was genuinely interested in learning more about these modules, and I already had a background of working within social enterprises and civil-society initiatives. I think my favourite lecture was the one in the module of Critical Studies of the Global South where we explored how individually, each one of us could be responsible for the atrocities happening in the sweatshops running in Bangladesh, Philippines, and poor countries. It was a hard pill to swallow for many of us, and it did change our behaviour about fast-fashion.

I currently work at IC3 Movement in India as a Communications Manager.

When I came back from my Masters in 2019, unfortunately the outbreak of COVID-19 had began. This impacted the job market very badly. I kept continuing freelance projects but only in November did I land a land a full-time job, relevant to my caliber and experience. I now work for IC3 Movement which is a volunteer-driven initiative that works to empower schools to have robust career and college counseling departments across the globe.

I work as a Communications Manager, and truly love my job. In this role, I bring in my previous understanding of content, research within EdTech, and also my learnings from the MA I pursued at Loughborough University London. This MA certainly gave me an edge during my interview rounds for this job.

I think my role is incredibly dynamic. As a Communications Manager, I interact with a lot of content (social media, collaterals, emails, etc) but I also get to work with volunteers (who are school and university leadership) from all across the world. I manage a wonderful team of mission-driven individuals. And together, we try to make as much as impact as we can in this education landscape.

I think the optional module called 'Social Movements' has a direct impact in my job role at this point. It was definitely one of the most enjoyable modules for me with Dr. Burçe Çelik.

At IC3 Movement, I am a part of the core team of an initiative called IC3 Advocates. IC3 Advocates are change makers from across the world who commit to one act of change every two weeks that create a positive impact. We launched it in March 2021 and by now (May 2021), we already have 300+ volunteers across 23 countries. Some learnings from this module of social movements that I have ingrained, were incredibly useful in creating a value system for this project.