Hot damn. A local private university which is famous for housing many passionate, talented rich youths is currently getting heat from its own students!
Shortly after implementing a new scholarship program which includes “Social Influencers” in one of the eligible categories, a number of undergraduates who discovered this revelation took no time to share their opinions on social media, specifically via the university’s unofficial community page — Taylor’s University Confessions.
This lengthy rant has received more than 600 likes and 500 shares at the time of writing. But wait.. is it possible that these furious people could have, perhaps, wrongly interpreted who the scholarships are actually meant for?
You see, we must note that there’s a difference between “Social Media Influencers” and “Social Influencers” — one is a term used for those popular Instagram kids who flaunt their wealth and fashun stuff on social media, while the other is for business-savvy peeps who might’ve not performed well in academics, but they sure are good in other areas such as e-sports.
#IMHO: Different people have different roles in life, and I’ve seen way too many of my peers who are clueless about what to do in life because their passion doesn’t fit the standard working demand — so I think it’s about time someone recognises these talents (like gaming) as bonafide skills as well.
One student explained that those who did register under the new Talent/Social Influencer scholarship program has to go through a number of tests which include doing a presentation on his/her achievements, and it has nothing to do with the amount of their Instagram followers.
Here’s the form, btw:
Granted, perhaps this could be a publicity stunt by Taylor’s University but let’s take a look at the bigger picture: it is a privately-funded university.
Who knows, maybe the Uni is trying to set up a team that competes in tournaments which include millions of dollars in prize money? It’s a win-win situation for both parties.
P/S: In case you haven’t heard, the US military has been recruiting professional gamers to operate its killer Predator drones since 2002, with the purpose of exploring the correlation between the skills developed in modern gaming and those needed on the battlefield.
So if you think about it, we can probably count on e-sports enthusiasts to protect our country from potential war threats.. which I hope won’t happen anytime soon – or ever.
Stay tuned for more updates. In the meantime, let us know what you think in the comments section 🙂
