Back for More
March 25, 2011 Back for More
I am back for my MA-Dramatic Arts at Wits
By Benne E, Banda
By any means, there is no loss in learning as who-so-ever learns gains. On that principle alone, an opportunity to do my MA deserved neither hesitation nor resistance, even with the recognition that there are costs to every opportunity. Having already spent a year doing my BA (Hons) at Wits University, away from my family, away from my house construction project and my work back home, of course called for careful consideration of what the opportunity costs of another year away would be.
An Honours degree sets a foot right but an MA charts a more probable and consolidated thrust onto the desired course in pursuit of one’s goals. Hence for me, missing this opportunity for an MA would be imprudent, as chances of taking another break for it in the next five years or so are next to zero; in view of the demanding, addictive and interloping nature of my work. And what this MA offers is vital to my serving and saving my clientele who always deserve the best there is.
Talent alone without the necessary skill informed by appropriate training is not enough. We live and work in a dynamic world with ever-changing complex needs in need of skilled change-agents who are always on their toes in search of appropriate and novel solutions. Drama and other applied theatrical arts and facilitation tools, as espoused by Drama For Life (DFL) in this MA programme, are efficiently designed to and aimed at addressing the physical, mental and social needs that haunt humanity.
Without an equally comprehensive academic programme in applied theatre back home as offered by Wits School of Arts, with its calibre of academic staff and all its training networks and infrastructure, including the support of my fellow scholars of both academic years, Wits University remains the home away from home. The experience that contributed to my academic growth in the past year in addition to my years of practice is invaluably quantifiable. Thanks to Wits, GTZ –Zambia (now GIZ) and the Goethe
Institute for the scholarship, my goal to be a contributing cog in the machinery of making the world a better place, in my own small way, is now definitely within sight. There is no better way of putting a claim to the badge of some of the world’s best, such as being a Witsie, than walking their path.