Is your university degree obsolete once you’ve entered the media advertising industry?
Absolutely not.
There is currently no university course that prepares graduates to become 100% ‘work ready’ for the media advertising industry. Does this mean that your three years (or more) of study are obsolete by the time you enter the media advertising industry?
It is fair to ask how university degrees can adequately prepare a student to work in an industry that changes as frequently as media advertising? Or how modern degrees can prepare students for positions which may not yet exist?
I argue that while the content of degrees can seem obsolete once you’ve entered the media advertising industry, it is the more implicit things that degrees teach students which are often underappreciated - discipline, dedication and determination.
For students considering a graduate position in media advertising, a communications or advertising degree is not an entry requirement. Graduate programs encourage diversity:
- MFA Graduate Program: The Media Federation of Australia Graduate Program encourages applicants to have finished a degree, but must also be “enthusiastic, dedicated and demonstrate career aptitude”.
- AFA Graduate Trainee Program: The Advertising Federation of Australia also encourages applicants who have studied a degree, but who are also “problem solvers, think outside the square, digital and tech-savvy”.
- WPP Fellowship: Arguably the most difficult communications graduate program in the world, it has the tagline “ambidextrous brains required,” but requires completion of a graduate degree at minimum. Current graduates have degrees in pure maths, philosophy and law.
The important commonality across these programs is the requirement for applicants to have completed a degree – in anything. Why? Content aside, university degrees teach students how to complete work to a set deadline. Degrees provide a framework for self-discipline.
After graduation, media advertising hopefuls will not only have a theoretical knowledge of their chosen field, but will also have a measure of discipline, dedication and determination – all desirable qualities in aspiring media advertising hopefuls.
One main purpose of enrolling in a university degree is to pursue academic study in a chosen field. While some of the content of non-media advertising degrees may seem obsolete by the time you’ve entered the media advertising industry, these degrees actually teach students to solve problems and communicate from an entirely different perspective.
These degrees also help develop the relevant research, problem solving and analytical skills required in a career in media advertising. In media advertising, you never quite know when you may need to recall something from your degree - it could end up being a useful insight, knowledge for a new pitch or even for a strategy brainstorm. Arguably, without these important skills, a career in media advertising can be limited.
There is undoubtedly a higher demand for employees with new media skills and this has lead to the emergence of more and more ‘specialist degrees’. This has resulted in younger staff being required to understand skill-sets of the past, as well as initiating new ideas on emerging platforms. Increased demand has resulted in more and more specialist degrees in the hope to ‘fill the talent gap’.
These degrees are designed to minimise time invested in training new staff by preparing students with content that will not become obsolete by the time they begin a career in media advertising. I believe that while specialist degrees offer highly focused knowledge not available in more mainstream courses, sometimes they can go too far. It will be interesting to ask this same question in three years time to see if the skills taught in today’s specialist courses will be obsolete in media advertising.
Andrew Da Silva
MediaCom