Mere paas MA hai

When the Master of Arts course at Gujarat University commenced its academic session recently, a dental surgeon, an MBA, engineers and even sadhvis shared the class with Bachelor of Arts graduates. For those of us who love languages but have never had the opportunity to pursue it academically, there is reason to be happy. The School of Languages at Gujarat University that had struggled to get significant number of students for its seven masters courses till last year has for the first time opened its doors to graduates from other disciplines.

Of the nearly 300 applications received for the MA courses, 71 applications were from students who have not studied BA but were keen to study Master of Arts. According to varsity officials, students who were admitted to School of Languages includes a student with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery, an MBA, five students with BTech and BE degrees, three with BCA and one with BBA to mention a few.

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The majority of students to switch streams have BCom degrees — 41of them will be part of the two-year master’s degree. The university school offers seven master’s degree courses, namely Hindi, Gujarati, Sanskrit, English, Prakrit, Urdu and Linguistics. This year, 251 students were admitted to these seven courses. Compared to last year, there was a rise of over a hundred admissions, an official said. “This is for the first time that we conducted screen test for students aspiring to study in MA. The test was to check their interest and understanding of the subject they wanted to pursue.

During our interaction with students, we found that majority of the students did not or could not pursue it due to various reasons. It’s likely that peer pressure, parent’s insistence or taking it up as a hobby might be reasons for pursuing it now. We are happy that so many students are now interested in pursuing MA,” said School of Languages Director Ranjana Argade. After struggling to get students for its MA courses, the varsity decided to admit students from non-arts background. Courses like Prakrit, Urdu hardly got any students. This year, for the first time, MA in Prakrit has received students in double digits — 15 students, including three Jain sadhvis.

A number of Jains are taking admission as they want to study Jain scriptures, officials said. A student who completed Bachelor in Dental Surgery and is now preparing for UPSC with Gujarati Literature as main subject is pursuing MA in Gujarati. “I was always interested in languages. In my college days, I wrote stories in Gujarati. My main subject in UPSC is Gujarati literature. Since academics up to third semester in MA similar to what we study in UPSC, it will be beneficial,” he said, requesting anonymity. He is also pursuing GPSC and exploring his chances by simultaneously pursuing everything. He is enrolled with SPIPA currently.

Officials claim it is mainly for the love of languages that students are pursuing MA this year. Take the case of Kamnath Trivedi who completed Bachelor of Engineering with 8.7 CGPA from LJ College in 2018. Since his interest lies in engineering and Sanskrit, he took admission in MA with Sanskrit. “My love for Sanskrit language and engineering are at par. My interest in Vedas and Puranas is deep and being a Brahmin I also perform traditional rituals. I want to gain more in-depth knowledge of our Vedas and Puranas that I can use it in karmkand (traditional rituals),” he said. To keep his interest in engineering alive, Kamnath has continued teaching engineering students in his college. “I guess, having a master’s degree in Sanskrit will help me in the long run as I also want to continue karmkand,” he said.

Shaily Bajaj, who studied BBA and Liberal Arts at Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU), developed an interest in languages after studying Chinese and French at PDPU. She studied Chinese later and thought of taking up linguistics study in MA. “I had my share of struggles to get a seat in the course. The passage was smooth after GU authorities decided to allow any graduate student to pursue MA. I am excited as I will be able to study as per my interest. This step will also break a stereotype of students only expected to study in one stream. Studying multi-stream will only help students enhance their knowledge of various streams and getting more degrees,” she said.

She said that Arts stream does not have any technical aspects to study, so it is not difficult for students from other streams to pursue it. “If students are interested in reading, understanding and writing, it should not be a problem. While it is good on university’s part, students also should act responsibility and study sincerely,” Bajaj said. The varsity has completed two rounds of admission, but with more students approaching them for admission in MA, the authorities are considering to conduct another round of admission to include more students.