The Problem With New Media Education and My Solution For It

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I run a small interactive agency called Kinoli. We receive many resumes and portfolios from students graduating from new media schools looking for an internship or their first real job.

In my opinion most of these soon to be new media graduates are not prepared to succeed in the real world. In this post I will outline 4 major problems with most new media institutions and my solutions for them.

A little background.

The year is 1996. I am a freshman at John Brown University. After one semester of classes as an Engineering major I realized that 4 years of engineering was probably going to be too much of a bore for me. So I decided to try out the brand new Digital Media program that was starting up.

My new media/design experience to that point included one art class in high school, one year of internet use and about ten t-shirt designs using Corel Draw 3. The digital media classes were definitely a lot more fun than the alternative: engineering, business, psychology… Instead of writing papers, I was creating web sites, 3D animations, videos and so on. Good deal.

However, near the end of my sophomore year I felt like something was missing from my education. I was having fun and learning a lot but it seemed like my professors were only teaching us how to use software. That’s when I decided to also major in Graphic Design. I needed to become a good designer if I wanted my new media to stand out from the crowd. It was one of the best decisions I made. I noticed a huge improvement in the quality of my work over the next two years and had many opportunities upon graduation.

It may sound like I’m knocking the digital media program at JBU. It definitely had some short comings when it was getting off the ground but I give it serious props for being one of the first institutions to offer a new media program. The digital media program at JBU now has multiple professors, state of the art equipment, and entrance requirements. They actually reject students based on their portfolio which I am a huge fan of. More on that in a bit.

Don’t just teach software

Most of the resumes and portfolios that I receive from graduating students show that they know how to use Dreamweaver, Illustrator and Flash but don’t have a clue about creating engaging multimedia. Their designs are poor and their problem solving skills are almost non-existent.

So basically, new media programs have the same problem that JBU had 10 years earlier. New media programs need to focus more on teaching students the fundamentals of good design and less on the mechanics. At Kinoli we look for people that can design and solve problems. I don’t care if they can’t code in CSS. That can be learned on the job.

It’s a business

Most web designers, developers and others in the field of new media will at some point work for themselves. Some will start their own agencies, while others will freelance in the evenings and weekends to make a few extra bucks. Wouldn’t it be smart for new media and graphic design programs to focus a little more on the business / entrepreneurial side of new media? I would like to see at least 9 credit hours devoted to business classes that are specific to new media.

The best class I took at JBU was the only business class that the graphic design program offered. It was called The Business of Graphic Design and was taught by Tim Walker, the owner of DOXA, a small graphic design shop. Tim taught us the basics about running a graphic design company and freelancing. Stuff like how much to charge for your services, how much to pay employees, how to stay in business, and a lot more. Most of what he taught came from his experience running DOXA. Classes like this should be a major part of new media and graphic design education.

Be selective

New media is fun. That’s why so many students want to study it in university. Some students have talent and will be very successful at it. Others who don’t stand a chance should be weeded out. To many programs accept anybody and everybody. I think that new media programs need to do a better job in screening applicants. They need to review portfolios and accept only those who show potential.

I received a phone call this week from a new media student in his last semester at a local university who was looking for an internship. When I asked to see his portfolio, he told me that he was ‘between portfolios’. I then asked him to tell me the url to the best web site he created. His response was that ‘none of his work is online’. Come on. This kid should have been weeded out four years ago. It does the new media program no good to have students like this in their program. The institution ends up with a bad reputation and the student gets an education that most likely won’t land him a good job.

Pay professors well

Most universities pay their new media professors much less than they pay professors in business, engineering and other majors. Why you ask. Because nobody calls them doctor. Universities pay their professors by the amount of education they have. The majority of new media professors don’t have a masters degree or a doctorate and nor should they. Doing new media in the real world is a much better educator than another 3 years of poor new media education.

Since universities don’t pay their new media professors very well, they don’t have great new media professors. They have people who are able to teach students how to use software and that’s about it. Could you imagine taking an SEO class from a guy like Aaron Wall or learning how to design web sites from somebody with Hillman Curtis‘ skills? It would be awesome but very unlikely until institutions start forking out the big bucks like they do for professors of other majors.

Advice for high school students

There are some institutions that are doing new media education very well, but I believe they are the exception. If you are a high school student thinking about majoring in new media, call or email the creative directors at the agencies in your city that win the design awards every year and ask them what institutions have the best programs.

They should know what programs to avoid and which ones produce the most employable people because they receive resumes from students every week and have probably hired a few people who have attended programs in your area.

I imagine some people will disagree with some of the points I have made, but I think most would agree that there is a lot of room for improvement in new media education. What say you?

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Well, Luke, I’m flattered to know anyone was paying attention. You may have been one of the two or three who were!

I’ve been running my own office for 15 years now, and we’re larger than we were when I taught that class. I’ve opened and closed a second office in another city and dealt with business problems I never imagined I would.

I never cease to learn something new, to be surprised and/or disappointed by what people are capable of when it comes to business, and I agree with your assertion that design programs should cover it more. In my time as an adjunct instructor, I’ve watched too many young designers strike out on their own too soon and too ill equipped to handle it.

These issues you bring up are on my mind quite a bit, too. There is unfortunately a disconnect between the academic design world and the practicing design world. In my own experience, I’ve seen too many people teaching design without any practical frame of reference at all. At the same time, too many of us who are practicing get too focused on the parameters of clients and forget that we’re also either contributing to or hurting the long term health of the design field. We’re often not seeing the bigger picture enough.

For that reason, I admire the practice of bringing working designers into the academic setting as adjuncts, where hopefully they compliment the program and offer the students a different perspective on their work. Schools like Portfolio Center in Atlanta are built on that model, and we have one of their graduates here doing excellent work to attest to the success of their model.

I have always and will always be an advocate of the liberal arts education. An effective designer needs a good perspective on the rest of the world and needs to have the fundamental communication skills and other skills that the liberal arts school should graduate them with. Finding ways to merge the laboratory of the classroom with the laboratory of the design practice is the next frontier, in my opinion.

I recently talked to a design professor about coming to work at DOXA during his sabbatical, and idea which I quite like for the same reasons I favor adjunct design positions. He would bring a different perspective to my design team, and one that they aren’t getting from me.

I’m glad I stumbled onto your blog and look forward to following it.

I also have 4 years of education in New Media and Graphic Design. I enjoyed having both the education of how to design mixed in with the education of how to get things done on the computer. It made me more rounded of an employee for any employer who was to have me work for them. I found that my skills were very well rounded for the smaller shops and they seemed to like having me around. I then went to work for a rather large (400+ employees) new media agency where I wasn’t as fortunate to do a mulitiude of activities. When it comes to the larger agencies, I find that you have to be a specialist in something.

I ended up becoming a flash developer (another skillset that you won’t find taught in any major new media school) for a number of reasons. However, a lot of what you do in the industry can only be learned by doing projects and doing the trial and error that comes along with it. I like both the design aspect and the development aspects of the industry but have found that its hard to keep on top of both, so my view of things are that its important to have a well rounded base that will eventually lead you into a more specified role as you learn more of what you like doing.

Another thing can be said for someone who is a master at something rather than someone who knows a little of everything but masters none of them. It’s nice to know everything at the beginning and then evolve your skill set into a more specific role. I have found that its impossible to master everything, their just isn’t enough time in the day for that.

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While your comments focus on the perpetual drive to standardize academic programs rather than ‘portfolio’ the instruction, as a design company owner, I consider the impression that an intern needs to come ‘ready made’ w/knowledge and practical experience to be quite short-sighted. The purpose of an internship is to learn what exists in the industry and test what has been learned in application. The best way to correct and augment current post-secondary standards is to allow the intern to find out the shortcomings of their education in the real world, and thus, go far toward to demand curriculums to step up to global standards. If the student doesnt have the opportunity to intern and learn this first-hand, the voice cant be heard on the university level to create mandate. That is the problem and the solution in a nutshell. One cant clone creativity.