Education has always been a bit of troublesome spot for me. None of my grandparents had their degree and so my parents were all very insistent that I get mine and they get about three apiece of their own. Between my folks, there are whole lotta letters trailing after their names. My mother is STILL in school, pursuing her doctorate…again.
Anyway, I got my degree and thought (emphasis on THOUGHT) about getting my Master’s in Fine Art before mounting school loan debt brought me to my very pragmatic senses. I wasn’t that jazzed about it anyway, since what I wanted to do was still very amorphous in my mind. Now, nearly ten years later, a degree in Social Media is being offered. And I don’t know how to feel about that.
My first impulse is to snark about it. After all, some very good questions by very smart people are bubbling to the surface:
-What do you teach?
-Who will teach it?
-How quickly will the curriculum be out of date?
-How do you teach something that hasn’t had sufficient history to be studied?
And on and on and many of these questions have to be answered. I’ve also been introduced to these folks, who seem to have some grasp of the education needed to move this forward. But it’s pretty hard to move forward with education in a certain subject, when the nature of that communication style is changing. . .well. . .education.
The thing that is difficult for me to grasp is how an accredited university can pace with how quickly social media is moving along. Viral is hard to stay on top of. If you can’t keep up, how do you design curriculum, find teachers, promote classes and give students the education they are looking for. And for that matter, where does social media fall in the course catalog anyway? Is it inherently “social”? Do students need to learn more about humans and they way they behave and react to certain messages and situations? Is that sociology? Or is it more based on marketing and communications? Or do you want to learn how to create these tools and dive into the technical aspects?
If I were looking for myself, I would want to focus on the social and marketing aspects of social media. The analytics and nuts and bolts of it interest me only inasmuch as they provide tools for my clients to measure my success, which makes clients happy, which leads to more clients. But that’s what I want to learn more about. I know people who are talking about the same world, tools and techniques I use but they toss out terms like semantic search and algorithms. And those things are just as important to them. Other colleagues are deeply interested in why social media affects people the way it does and how to make it work better and develop products that elicit better usability. So, I think MSM (Masters of Social Media) would look very different for a lot of folks and would include professors from a wide range of subjects.
Add to that the fact that half the reason Social Media is so game-changing is that there is so much information from smart people out there for FREE. No you’ll never receive a pretty piece of paper with your name on it and get your wild mane of curls smooshed down by an ugly hat or have to don a shapeless and musty smelling gown, but how great was that experience for everyone? It’s hard to muster up the desire to get my degree in something when I am bombarded by information I can barely get through every day, and it’s usually good stuff!
This post isn’t meant to be authoritative. I’m just asking questions here. What do you think?
This is an interesting topic and I think you did an excellent job examining the issues surrounding the idea of ‘formal’ education in social media. I teach a graduate course in Human Resources Technology, and while social media is certainly not my primary focus, I do spend time in my class covering how social media is impacting HR functions like recruiting, knowledge management, and collaboration. As you say, the technology and the landscape is changing so rapidly that material I use is mostly out of date six months later. I do think that a better approach than a ‘social media degree’ would be for professors to adapt their material in existing marketing, management, advertising, etc. programs to include modules on social media. The tools are only relevant to the professional if they serve to help accomplish business objectives, ‘teaching’ them outside of their business context does not make much sense to me. Really great post and thanks for the chance to comment.
Luckily, my alma mater…George Mason, has a New Century College, where they merge like sport management or religion philosophy.
If it would be a separate major, it would likely be more in business communications, if there is such one. But I agree with Steve that you need some support in the university to get it through.
I really liked your questions!
As a recent college grad (…from 2007), I think this “degree” has been created to give us kids (and others too) an almost false sense of hope for the future.
In today’s competitive job market, what makes YOU stand out from John and Jane Doe? For those who want to be in journalism, marketing, etc., there’s a lot of requests for experience with social media, SEO and all that jazz. So, if you have a second degree in Social Media to complement your degree in Communications or Journalism or whatever, you APPEAR to be much more knowledgeable (unless someone has the work history, of course). But to me, I think it’s just a waste of time.
All in all, I’m not sure if this “degree” was created so much for OUR benefit as it is for the school’s benefit. You are right… social media is ever-changing. Curriculum will become obsolete almost immediately, in my opinion. Remember, this is America. People are going to try to make money. Don’t let a school take yours in the form of a hefty tuition for another degree in something you can experiment with on your own. Plus, if you need help, you’ve always got your Twitter friends.
Side note: When I say “you,” I am referring to anyone reading this comment.
Hi Maren!
We’re Twitter friends, wanted to stop by and check out teh blog and say hello. I love it! Cheers
Hey there, Maren. Speaking of Social Media University … check this out: http://social-media-university-global.org
No joke. The guy who heads that up is the mastermind behind Mayo Clinic’s online presence.
Let me know what you think.
See you out there.
- Jim
http://twitter.com/medxcentral
Hi Maren,
I use information from the American University Center for Social Media (part of their Communications School) a lot when I’m teaching 9th graders. I’m very impressed with the stuff they had. If I had the gumption to go back to school, it might be there.
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/