Are Universities preparing their students for the job market?
What is the Value of a 'Media' Degree?
Last week, I was invited to speak at the ITTP (Institute for Training in Television Production) at Heatherdean Hall in Pinewood. The event is held annually and attracts a range of institutions who are involved in training and education. In attendance were many universities among other training providers.
There were several panels of guest speakers throughout the day (mostly white, middle -class men). In the morning session, BT, Black Magic Design and The Camera Crew were talking about 'what the industry wants' and in the afternoon, producer Jan Harlan was on stage discussing 'What TV Can Learn from Film and Theatre'. In the middle of the day was our panel, consisting of editor Stephen Haren (Northern Soul, Misfits), James Johnson of Molinare and me, Matt Gallagher, representing thecallsheet.co.uk (Sadly, none of us were able to stick around for the other talks due to work commitments).
Our panel focused on skills gaps in education and training for the industry. Stephen, James and I come from a Film and TV Drama background. Our experiences are very different to those who work in TV Broadcast for large organisations like BT, who have large HR mechanisms for sucking in graduates straight from universities.
We discussed the overcrowded job market, the importance of preparing to be a runner and that training in technical skills should be married with training in soft skills. We fielded a few questions at the end about location, skills and job expectations etc.
I’ll be honest here, all three of us later confessed to ‘holding back’ as panellists. We tried to be constructive and honest, while conveying the reality of the job market. Truth is, we could have, and perhaps should have, gone further. It was only later that I discovered we had been chosen to talk for that very reason – to be candid about catching your first break in the business and ruffle a few feathers. Perhaps by means of addressing that, I’ve been thinking about the role of higher education. Here's the talk.
Back in 2014, Stephen Follows published another of his excellent blogs about film and TV. This article was about employment and job seekers. One of the surprising results was that many employers value job candidates possessing a driving licence and those aged over 21, above those with a media degree. With around 30,000 people graduating with a media or film degree every year – are ‘media’ degrees indistinguishable? At a cost of £27,000, does university make financial sense? It does to the universities of course, as 30,000 graduates paying £27,000 each equals £810,000,000. That’s a lot of money.
The Production Guild operate a runners course that many employers will identify and value highly. As do the Call Time Company, who hand-pick their runners and give them lots of bespoke, vocational training about entry level work.
Let’s take a cost/benefit analysis of each line that might appear in the ‘education and training’ section of your CV. Let’s say you have three lines on your CV to describe your university education. The first line contains the name of the course, the second line contains university and year, with the third line detailing the qualifications gained. Each of these lines would have cost you £9k to include on your CV. If you also went on the Production Guild runners course, that one single line would cost you £60. Which one of those would stand out to an employer more? What is the cost / benefit of it on your CV?
There are thousands of candidates with almost identical qualifications; some kind of ‘media’ degree. How does any employer distinguish between the ‘media’ production course at the University of Northampton and the ‘media’ production course at the University of Birmingham? The Production Guild runner course is likely to stand out much more to the employer because it shows you have been a) self-motivated to do the course – not as part of your university training, b) that you are aware that you need training in that area, c) prepared to start off as a runner – instead of coming out of university and claiming you are some kind of cinematographer for example – and d) would have been taught by Guild registered professionals.
For what it is worth, I think every young person in this country should have the chance to go to university; the current government (and probably subsequent govts.) disagree. University gives people the opportunity to grow and mature, to expand and exercise their minds. It’s better for individuals and better for the wider society. However, the reality is that university is now such a huge financial burden that it puts many people off. Despite the government announcing that there are more people now going to university than ever before, is there a class divide where only the wealthier young adults are able to attend university? The institutions need to prove their relevancy now more than ever. If you do train in media and film at university, the skills that they teach you will be useful later down the line, but they may not all be relevant to the first job you get in the industry. You might be able to operate AVID or Pro Tools when you graduate, but the equipment you might need to master in your first job is the photocopier and the kettle. If you can stick it out and keep showing you are keen, you will start getting opportunities to make the most of those skills you learned at uni.
Our panel were quite clear – that the first job you get after graduating is very likely to be as a runner, trainee, assistant or apprentice. This is how the majority of the workforce start in the industry. That is, if you want to work on proper productions – the type of films and TV shows that inspired you to study film or TV at university in the first place. I feel that universities could do more to prepare students for the job market and to help them understand the landscape of the business they will be going in to.
Many of the production companies I speak with complain about the attitude of runners. I’m pretty sure that my generation of runners were considered in the same way, and the generation before that probably felt the breath of the generation beyond them and so on. The point is that way back then, £27,000 could buy you a comfortable house in Iver, now it’s the cost of a university education and young people face a difficult decision before they even turn 18.
So, I have three questions for you. Four actually. Here they are: 1. Did you study Film or Media at university since the fees came in? 2. Did your degree bare any significance in getting your first job and 3. Do you feel that you were adequately prepared by your course for entering the job market? 4. Does anyone refer to this industry as the ‘media’ other than universities?
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