New Media

I went through several different majors, trying to find something that was right for me, and 2 semesters ago I read up on the New Media program, and it looked promising. Allowing for programming and creativity, it sounded interesting and something that I could do. It has been (relatively) interesting, and I could go through with it, but I have once more changed my major.

The New Media program consists of telling students that if they work hard enough that they can get a job doing what they want, be it audio, video, making games, or building websites. I accept, to a certain degree, the building websites, but the rest are mostly just pipe dreams and the program encourages students to spend 4 years and a lot of money to get a job, if they want it enough. I had three friends from high school go to Full Sail for video, audio, and band management (something Full Sail is renowned for being a great school for) and they all now work at Best Buy. The market for what a New Media degree is supposedly going to get you just isn't there. I've heard time and again in this program 'if you work hard enough, you can get a job.' And side-by-side with this comes the name Frank Tai. The 'poster child' of New Media, I don't think I made it through a single New Media course without having his name offered as proof that anyone can get their dream job. But then, if you talk to any of the professors or grad students in a less formal setting, they admit that he spent his entire life working on his stuff. He was ALWAYS here. If you have that kind of dedication to pretty much anything, then yes, you will be successful 99% of the time. Just because he made it doesn't mean that everyone will, and most probably won't.

Next topic: building video games. If you really want to go make the next Grand Theft Auto, or Call of Duty, you pretty much need to get a computer science degree. That's not to say that New Media won't help in the graduate-level, I am not critiquing that, only the under-graduate program. Andy Harris, a professor and advisor in the Computer Science department, has a master's in New Media. He's written books on various programming languages, and made video games (as well as teaches the classes). But even with his New Media Master's, he tells New Media students to change to CS (something that I've found most CS professors do). But to go from a Bachelor's in New Media, to one of the big-name gaming companies, I just don't see happening. Yes, you could make the 2-D or 3-D character models, but to really build the game, that's computer science.

Making 2-D/3-D Art. As I said before, the job market just isn't there. I have yet to hear anything other than 'you have to work hard to get a job.' To me that is just a euphemism for there is no job market. If you are good enough, and have enough luck to get one of the few jobs that are there, good for you. I do not mean to downplay those individuals who have succeeded with this program, its just that I have a feeling that there are many students who haven't succeeded, and we just don't hear about them.

I believe that the New Media program should be scrapped, and rebuilt within other programs. If you want to build websites, there should be a track within the computer science program to suit that. If you want to do audio, then a specialization within the music technology degree. 2-D/3-D? Herron. Video is the only degree that I can not think of a specific major that it could be inherently absorbed into, and that could simply mean making it its own specific degree into the School of Informatics.