When I recall my childhood days, I don’t really remember a happy child who loved her homework. I reminisce a cribbing child who felt irritated with pending work. She was someone who loved wrapping up work and going back home, free. Like someone, who wanted work to stay at work place and get back home, baggage free. But then as days passed, she grew up and learnt to deal with the dreadful, homework. Also, as she grew up, the definition of the word homework changed for her. In some years, the definition evolved from ‘completing the homework’ to ‘research’.

Now that I have completed my two months of internship at a reputed Public Relations firm, I really understand the importance of the word, homework. These two months have changed a girl from being a I-don’t-care-about-homework to homework-is-important girl.

The first incident which triggered this change was this journalist who works for The Hindu publication. During my internship, I was handling a consumer technology client. And for that client’s work, I had to call up journalists and pitch. So, one of the work was to pitch for a renowned Sri Lankan Opera singer. As usual, I was asked by my senior to talk to the features journalists for this singer. And for two days, in spite of making numerous calls, I realised that none of the journalists were interested in writing about her and some even said that they cover different beats. And that’s when I realised that perhaps I was reaching out to the wrong journalists. I did my ‘homework’ and mapped out a set of journalists who write on music. On the third day, I made my first call for this singer. The name of this journalist was Anurag Tagat. When I explained him that I have someone’s profile and I feel it might interest him, he interrupted me by saying that he only covers music. On mentioning with conviction, that I know his beat and the fact that this will definitely interest him, he did sound happy and surprised. And at last, I bagged my first interview opportunity for this singer. My ‘homework’ on this journalist gave me success!

And that’s when I realised the worth of the word, ‘homework’. I realised why teachers put so much stress on this particular thing or rather why was I scolded all the time for not doing my homework.

There is another incident which I particularly recall from my internship days. One day, during a call with a journalist, ten minutes into the conversation, he sternly said that he has changed his publication. And when I told him that I was aware of it and wanted to talk with him regarding that, he did sound happy. Furthermore, he appreciated that I have done my homework well.

So, finally the cribbing child has grown up and now appreciates her homework.

This blog originally appeared on the author’s blog site.

– Riya Sarkar

Riya is a student of the Class of 2018 of the Post Graduate Programme in Public Relations at SCoRe. She has completed her Masters in English Literature from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. She can be reached at Riya Sarkar on LinkedIn and @sarkarriya_92 on Twitter.