What can you do with a degree in Digital Media and Broadcast Film?

Is a media production degree a waste of time?

• I'm looking to study at Coventry for a BA Hons Media Production in September, with aspirations of getting a career in the film industry. I'm painfully aware however that media production degrees have a tendency to be very broad and unspecific, not really tailoring to provide any specific skills in film production fields. Would my best bet be trying for an internship or taking a year out and reapplying for a course more solely focused on film production? Course details can be found below, the BA hons degree show isn't exactly anything cutting-edge either: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/course-structure/2013/school-of-art-and-design/undergraduate-degree/media-production-ba-hons/ Any help much appreciated, thanks.

• Answer:

  It depends what your ultimate goal is. General degrees (and I'd include general film degrees in that as well) can be a good way to sample the range of different jobs and positions and discover interest in one area or, equally important, that you are not suited to another. However no degree or certification will likely get you a job out of school (unless you get an electrical trades-person degree and want to work in grip and electric). Film employment tends to require *extreme* specialization (followed by luck) so what you do *outside* of your official classwork is often just as important as what you do *in* it. Force yourself to learn industry standard software and methodology if you're interested in visual effects, or post production. Boom op or mix as many friends projects as you can if you're interested in sound. Offer to time friends projects for free if you're interested in grading. Shoot every weekend, if you're interested in camera departments. Follow local message boards looking for volunteers on terrible vanity projects. Some will be complete wastes of time, but sometimes you'll learn something other than how to "carry this light stand up the hill". Find what passions drive you and spend as much time as you can making your projects be about developing *that*. Use projects to actually develop your skills, not make "tiny films" (more on that in my answer here: ) I often tell the story of one of the most successful classmates I ever had: He thought he wanted to be a director until he actually learned what a director did, and realized he had no interest in that. Then he wanted to be a visual effects artist, and discovered that day-to-day work was insanely tedious and repetitive and he couldn't focus on it. Finally he just resigned himself to working as much as he could as a set recordist since no one else wanted to do that in our cohort, it required the least amount of ongoing time commitment, and he could then use all his free time (and some of the school equipment) to throw big huge illegal raves. I don't even think he liked raves, he just wanted an excuse to wear these asinine homemade pants he'd construct out of garbage bags, and duct tape, and sheep skins from IKEA. He learned how to solder patch cables and got course credit for "repairing" school equipment (when he was actually still working on his ridiculous pants, soldering them with LED lights and tiny speakers). Suffice it to say he was (at best) a mediocre sound recordist, but kept his head down and graduated. Last time I saw him was in a magazine feature about how he was one of the most successful designers of "alternative material clothing" in years, working with haute couture brands on their runway shows.