Here is my take on college...a scam. Ok, not entirely. I have a BFA and an MA and I made them work for me. No regrets. However, since 1994 I've had a dual career in television production and K12 CTE education. Because of that, I've partnered with local universities in the Houston, TX area and some in other states. I can only speak of my area, Mass Communications/Radio/TV & Film. Small to mid-sized colleges appear to be, "ripping-off," students. I've seen apathetic conditions with no outcry. What are those? Small to mid-sized and some large universities, despite the economic downturn, are experts and geniuses and acquiring funding. Once they get the funds they put in marvelous and spectacular broadcasting and film production facilities.
What is laughable and a crime is that the trend for post-secondary grants and private sector funds never goes toward hiring. And I mean hiring professionals who have worked in TV and film that can actually teach the students. I can't tell you how many of my students from high school, where I was the director of an advanced media program, are dissapointed with their college because they were sold on the eye-candy, but once they arrived on campus they received a rude awakening...NONE OF THEIR PROFESSORS EVER WORKED IN TV OR FILM! LOL WTH?! And most universities justify this. A kid coming out of a high school media program is light years away from the professors teaching them. It is absurd. Laughable even. Until you realize students are spending hard earned monies to attend schools where they are only learning by using YouTube training videos. Many never get past their high school knowledge level (in their major).
The current U.S. system of colleges is blindly focused on hiring mostly PhD's for research, but that severely harms your hybrid areas of academia such as TV and film production that falls into the area of trade as well as academia. A friend of mine is a PhD at the University of Nebraska and he admits this flaw, yet most of his colleagues are aware of it and also aware that the schools are light years behind in their thinking. These days a college grad needs theory and hands on, applied science, practical training and knowledge. The combination of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois.
Finally, why won't schools hire professionals with the skills and at least a Bachelors? Tenure. Those professors that are tenured would raise a massive stink if a filmmaker was brought in with the skillset and paid a comparable salary. Of course this works in California, home of Hollywood. But everywhere else...forget it! This is when civil disobedience is needed. Students should be complaining like crazy that they are not learning. Even staging sit-ins. They are wasting their money and time. But the, "protest," mind of our collective has been diminished and most of us in the states operate as cattle.
Ted A. Irving, M.A.
Sam Houston State University Alumni Board of Directors
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Houston Fulbright Association
2002 Hightower HS Teacher of the Year
2003 Houston ABSE 2ndary Teacher of the Year
Former NAACP Gloster B. Current Leadership Award Winner
2002 Texas Regional Emmy Award Winner
2006 Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher
What is laughable and a crime is that the trend for post-secondary grants and private sector funds never goes toward hiring. And I mean hiring professionals who have worked in TV and film that can actually teach the students. I can't tell you how many of my students from high school, where I was the director of an advanced media program, are dissapointed with their college because they were sold on the eye-candy, but once they arrived on campus they received a rude awakening...NONE OF THEIR PROFESSORS EVER WORKED IN TV OR FILM! LOL WTH?! And most universities justify this. A kid coming out of a high school media program is light years away from the professors teaching them. It is absurd. Laughable even. Until you realize students are spending hard earned monies to attend schools where they are only learning by using YouTube training videos. Many never get past their high school knowledge level (in their major).
The current U.S. system of colleges is blindly focused on hiring mostly PhD's for research, but that severely harms your hybrid areas of academia such as TV and film production that falls into the area of trade as well as academia. A friend of mine is a PhD at the University of Nebraska and he admits this flaw, yet most of his colleagues are aware of it and also aware that the schools are light years behind in their thinking. These days a college grad needs theory and hands on, applied science, practical training and knowledge. The combination of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois.
Finally, why won't schools hire professionals with the skills and at least a Bachelors? Tenure. Those professors that are tenured would raise a massive stink if a filmmaker was brought in with the skillset and paid a comparable salary. Of course this works in California, home of Hollywood. But everywhere else...forget it! This is when civil disobedience is needed. Students should be complaining like crazy that they are not learning. Even staging sit-ins. They are wasting their money and time. But the, "protest," mind of our collective has been diminished and most of us in the states operate as cattle.
Ted A. Irving, M.A.
Sam Houston State University Alumni Board of Directors
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Houston Fulbright Association
2002 Hightower HS Teacher of the Year
2003 Houston ABSE 2ndary Teacher of the Year
Former NAACP Gloster B. Current Leadership Award Winner
2002 Texas Regional Emmy Award Winner
2006 Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher
I wouldn't quite go so far as to call college a total scam for all majors, but it certainly does seem like those media/film students are getting ripped off.
ReplyDeleteStill, I do feel that the purpose of going to college is more about learning how to think so that you can make advancements in your chosen discipline. It's not just learning how to do the work once you're there.
As tech gets more and more sophisticated, it is only natural that many professors won't have used it yet. Those professors need to bring more to the table than just a knowledge of how to work the equipment.
That does go for all disciplines. It is going to be increasingly difficult to keep up with the latest tech or the latest research. That will more and more become the students' job anyway. It will be the professors' job to help them make sense of all that information, and figure out how to use it in a productive way.