Media School students combine degrees for career fulfillment
For the first two years of his college career, JP Pritchard was pre-med. He had known he wanted to work in health his whole life, but something wasn’t right. His classes were interesting, but he didn’t love them. He could do the work, but he wasn’t passionate about it.
“I didn’t like all of the memorization,” Pritchard said. “I realized I was more of an application and solution person.”
He found the answer in IU’s Individualized Major Program, which allows students to build a curriculum and create a major that doesn’t otherwise exist. His major started as science journalism, but is now human health and media sciences. He’s taking courses in sociology, biology and psychology and discovering how media influences the human body.
“I took a look at my interests, and kept coming back to media,” he said. “I’ve always liked making videos, analyzing films and other stuff like that.”
Pritchard is just one of many students within The Media School who are combining their media degree with another minor or major outside of The Media School. Other students within the school are combining journalism and computer science, journalism and management, and video game design and studio art, to name a few.
These students carefully chose their specific combination to get an edge in their desired fields.
“I think it’s a great way to use more than just one part of my brain,” said Sarah Gardner, a junior journalism major in The Media School.
Gardner is also in the Liberal Arts Management Program and has a School of Public and Environmental Affairs minor.
“It’s opened a lot of doors for me,” Gardner said. “I think it’s important for people to expand their horizons. It should be encouraged.”
Gardner landed an internship at Dow Jones this past summer due to her business and finance experience while participating in The Media School’s Summer in London program.
Eman Mozaffar, a senior, is also in LAMP. She’s a journalism and computer science major who plans to use her knowledge about programming to report about cybersecurity.
“I encourage others to take web design or computer coding classes, because it’s a valuable skill to have,” Mozaffar said. “More journalists should be aware of what’s happening on the back end.”
Mozaffar will work at a cybersecurity firm in Chicago after graduation. She plans to use the experience she gains in the industry as important background knowledge for when she becomes a full-time journalist.
Devin Good said combining his video game design degree with studio art has drastically increased his portfolio.
The junior plans to become a creative director for a game studio someday, and said having art experience will enhance his career track.
“We learn about the programming side, art side, design side and marketing our game to the world,” Good said. “This affords me the ability to be flexible in roles on a game team and makes me that much more valuable.”
Gardner echoed Good’s belief that a flexible candidate is a better candidate.
“It’s great to be part of a university that has such a specialized skill set,” Gardner said. “But you can’t put blinders on.”
More: