“Following a Social Media Degree, who would ever do that?” Hooray! #MarketingTwitter has found a new topic to discuss about! “What even is the purpose of following a Social Media Degree? Is following a degree even necessary? Can’t we all understand Social Media? This Degree is ridiculous!”
Well, here are the takes from a student who followed a Communication and Media Bachelor’s Degree and a Media and Business Master’s Degree. Following a Media degree is more than fine.
During a beautiful Monday, Marketing Twitter was made aware of a University that launched a new Social Media Degree. The news was received with some (or a lot of) criticism. Some people asked whether or not it was useful to follow a Social Media Degree. Some people consider the idea of having a Social Media Degree as hilarious. “By the time you’ve obtained your degree, everything has changed.”
As a fresh Communication and Media, and Media and business graduate, I can understand their reasoning in some way. But with my own, very recent experiences, I can tell you that a Media Degree is not only about learning how to use Social Media. The Degree goes beyond that, and is far more critical and complex than we would suggest.
Look at what courses the University teaches. Are they all about Social Media, or do they go beyond that? Or do Universities offer classes about a specific topic? Check the course guide. Because a ‘Social Media Degree’ might sound like it only covers Social Media, but it can in fact go beyond that.
When I did my Bachelor’s in International Communication and Media at the Erasmus University, I expected to follow a lot of courses that would teach me how to use Social and Digital Media. Well — here are some courses I took that had little to nothing to do with Media
Neither of these courses taught me how to use Social Media. But:
Then, we also had a mandatory course that taught us about the history of traditional and social media, and a mandatory course that taught us to be wary of the ever-changing media environment.
The Bachelor’s Degree also offered topics like these:
Most Universities know that teaching us about Social Media isn’t enough. Therefore, their curriculum goes beyond just Social Media. My Bachelor’s course was Media, Marketing, Psychology, Sociology and Culture combined. Even during the courses about Media, we always examined the development and use of media from a critical Cultural, Sociological or Historical perspective.
So don’t worry, a Social Media Degree is so much more than Social Media.
Tip to future students: Always ask Universities to share a course guide. This way, you can see which courses you can follow, and if they are in line with the things you want to learn. Make sure that your University offers seminars and electives too. This way, you can follow courses from a different Degree, like Business Administration, Economics or Philosophy. For instance, I followed Linguistics and Canadian Studies courses during my exchange in Calgary.
The two main skills that a University should teach you are 1) Research and 2) Critical Thinking. You need these two skills if you want to learn more about anything in the corporate field. This way, when “Social Media becomes outdated,” you can still critically examine media developments and analyze consumer behaviour.
Both my Bachelor’s and my Master’s Degree were 50% Research and Critical Thinking and 50% Learning about Media and Communication.
During my first 8 weeks as a student, I had to follow an intense Academic Skills workshop that taught me how to access, reference and interpret sources. This workshop also taught me how to make a statement while carefully weighing all academic sources.
Then, I had multiple Quantitative and Qualitative Research workshops during my four years of study. These courses taught me how to:
During my other courses, we had to write papers in order to pass a course. During these papers, we always had to interpret and refer to academic sources and then give evidence, by either mentioning a case study, doing a survey, performing interviews or doing a qualitative content analysis. If your paper wasn’t critical enough, you’d fail your paper.
My bachelor’s and Master’s were concluded with a Thesis where I
Seriously, even a Social Media Degree is way more than ‘Learn how Twitter works.’
Tips for students: You’re going to hate quantitative and qualitative research as a student. But you’ll be thankful for having followed these classes when you’re old!
As Marketers, we often talk about how Social Media should be taken seriously. That a Social media employee isn’t an intern. That you can’t just expect to become a Social Media Expert by just posting online. That Online Marketing requires knowledge and experience.
Well, I’m sure that a University is exactly teaching that to students by offering these Degrees. My degree taught me that Media systems, Consumer Behaviour and Communication all are far more complex and flexible than we think it is. And I’m sure that a Social Media Degree will do the same. University professors know that Social Media are always changing.
If we want to take Social Media seriously, we have to start taking Social Media Degrees seriously too.
And of course, a university degree doesn’t teach you everything. I had to learn Copywriting, SEO, setting up Advertisements on my own. I am not a good at creating Marketing content because I followed a Degree. But my degrees did help me to think critically and to assess the right sources when learning these skills. Thanks to research and critical thinking, I am becoming a Marketing professional.
