Deep Dive Into Options

I’m excited that we are now on Lesson Three of How to Choose a Program, which is a deeper dive, because this is where I think things get really interesting.

Slide 1: How to Choose a Program/Major

Okay, I'm excited that we are now on Lesson Three of How to Choose a Program, which is a deeper dive, because this is where I think things get really interesting. At this point, you may only have a vague idea of what each study area on your list really means. 

Slide 2: Goals

  • Find possibilities (field of study or actual program) that continue more than one of your interest areas
  • Look at courses typically included in the field of study. Does this look interesting?
  • Look at related careers
  • Tip: Though you might find specific programs of interest, that’s not the goal here. Don’t worry about country or tuition in this exercise. Start with countries that have comprehensive website – usually Northern Europe

Here's what we're trying to figure out with this. The first thing we want to know is does the category have possibilities that incorporate some of your primary or secondary interests more than one of them together? 

So again, the first thing we want to do is see if we can have more than one of your interest areas in one particular program. We want to look into the required courses, if they look interesting. What sorts of careers does this lead to? And what I don't want you to do is to worry, don't worry about finding specific programs right now. It might naturally happen, but it's not the goal. So do look at programs, even if they're out of your budget, or not in a place that you want to live. The other thing, as I said before, is that some websites are a lot more comprehensive than others. As a general rule, those in Northern Europe have a lot more information. So you might want to start there, even if it's not where you plan to study. 

Slide 3: Related Study Areas

  • Anthropology
  • Arts and Entertainment Management
  • Arts related studies
  • Communications and Media Studies
  • Sales and Marketing (only social media marketing)
  • Liberal Arts
  • General Humanities, Social Sciences, Communication

So let's walk through this one together too. We have the list from Ellie's interests from Lesson Two, and we're going to dig deep into the websites and see what the courses involved are. So we're going to do a database search and look at the websites for more than one of each category. 

Slide 4: Anthropology

  • 4 listed – one looks different than the others
  • Multidisciplinary and combines other interest areas

So when she goes to Anthropology, for instance, she sees that there are only four listed and one looks really different than the others. The one that she sees is different. It is more multidisciplinary, and it combines other interest areas. 

Slide 5: Anthropology

Leiden University – Cultural Anthropology and Developmental Studies

  • “Challenges you to explore different cultural practices by entering the mindset of different people”
  • “delve deeper into areas that fascinate you”
  • “mix of theory and practice, including acquiring video production skills and conducting fieldwork”
  • Nothing looks negative in the course curriculum and there are some exciting classes like Media Worlds, Diversity and Development, Visual Methods
  • Careers: communications, filmmaking, development, non-profit, education, research

The program description that interests her, again, is very different than the others. It includes digital media, and classes on media that seemed interesting and combine more of her interest. The careers listed were pretty vague. Next step would be to see what some of these mean, and that might be through Google or a counseling department at school, or people in our family might know something. But this is what she liked about the program. Again, this is not representative of the other programs listed under Anthropology. 

Slide 6: What’s the verdict?

  • The other anthropology programs don’t have as much variety as this one. Since Ellie is a few years away from applying, she is keeping this on specific programs of interest list. She will do an anthropology search when she is closer to applying to see if anything similar has been added.

So what she knows is that this is an example of stumbling on a specific program that might not be representative of the field as a whole. Since the other programs don't have that same variety, it looks like she's less interested in Anthropology as a field or a real focus as she is in this multidisciplinary program. That said, there might be other similar programs added in the years before she graduates, so she's going to keep it on her radar. And she'll do another search for Anthropology when she's closer to applying to see what comes up, and she's also going to keep this particular program at Leiden on her list. 

Slide 7: Arts and Entertainment Management

  • Economics and Management for Arts, Culture and Communication
  • Digital Media Management
  • Media and Entertainment Management

So now we move on to Arts and Entertainment Management. There were a few different categories under this specific field. You could kind of put the different programs into these three different categories. And when she looked at the website, so the first two categories, she saw a lot of general business classes that really didn't appeal to her. There are other programs, particularly in the Arts and Entertainment Management, the Media and Entertainment Management section, that incorporate the business related knowledge into the curriculum, but make it specific to the media stuff. So those courses are more appealing to her. There are also careers that look really interesting to her. And she sees things like working as a manager for a magazine or other publications, a media planner at a digital advertising agency or TV station, starting your own company developing cross media formats. I personally don't even know what that means. Working for YouTube channel, digital agency, media agencies, media buyers and digital marketing strategies. Of course, she also sees that one of the schools has a campus in Thailand where they offer some of their minors for a semester. Thailand is on her bucket list due to the elephant sanctuaries that we've talked about in Lesson One. So that's kind of like a bonus. And again, another thing to keep on her radar.

Slide 8: What’s the verdict?

  • Ellie realized that the careers around this sound really interesting to her. General business and economic classes don’t appeal to her, but she is interested in those that tie it into the arts/media

So there's enough to know that she wants to keep this area on her list, but she knows that she has specifications around it, and that's fine. It also really speaks to the importance that looking at more than one program in a category is going to give you an idea of what you do and don't want to study, and if there's a way to sort of study that general area. If there's a way to study Arts and Entertainment Management, for instance. without the very general business courses. And we found that there are some ways for that through this search. 

Slide 9: Arts Related Studies

  • Initial concerns about the visual arts focus were verified. Crossing off list.

So we went to Arts Related Study. Her initial concerns about the visual arts focus were verified, so she crosses that off her list. 

Slide 10: Sales and Marketing

  • Realized that her interest in this falls under the programs listed under Arts and Entertainment Management. Crossing off list.

We go to Sales and Marketing. And she realized that her interest in this falls under those programs that we already talked about and found under Arts and Entertainment Management. So she crosses this off her list. 

Slide 11: Communications and Media Studies

Media Studies

  • “Focuses on the informative and applied ‘culture’ in its anthropological definition”
  • Lots of overlap of interesting careers (with Arts and Entertainment Management)

Then we get to Communications and Media Studies. And she realizes that Media Studies has a lot of overlap with what she liked about some of the other programs, both in the content and also in terms of the careers that they noted. So she saw that some of the careers noted under these programs — and guys, are these pages with the websites that will often say, you know, after graduation, or what our graduates are doing. Really go to those pages, they often have really incredible information. So for some of these, she saw that graduates are working as managers in communication, radio, television and cinema, publishing and new media, fashion, entertainment, and live performance companies. Particularly, live performance companies interest her due to her love of musical theater. She sees that there are program schedule managers in communication companies, organizers of entertainment and festivals, experts on cultural tourism. All sorts of things that really do excite her and interest her. 

Slide 12: General Areas of Study

  • She will also go through the general areas of study we identified to see if there are program types that incorporate more than one of her interest areas.

So she's keeping of, course, Communication and Media Studies, particularly Media Studies on her list of what she's interested in studying. But what I want you to remember is that if you're struggling to identify what you want to study, it means that you don't have one singular passion that you want to focus on, which is totally fine. A way around this is to find interdisciplinary programs. It's like having a double or triple major, but it's all presented in a cohesive way. So that's where these general area searches will help. 

For instance, when we did a search on Humanities under general areas of study, Ellie found a program called Humanities, Society and Culture, and this program incorporates anthropology, the arts, literature, film studies and other topics. So sometimes, and that's one where you can look at the title and see that it'll be multidisciplinary. You can't always tell, so really do dig deep into here. 

Slide 13: What Ellie Figured Out

  • Media studies or management
  • Interdisciplinary program that includes anthropology and media

So, by the end of this exercise, Ellie is able to identify what she does and does not want to study. She knows that what she's looking for is a media studies or media management program, or an interdisciplinary program that includes those areas of anthropology and media. 

Slide 14: Further Exploration

  • Experience Days
  • Careers
  • Clubs
  • Courses

So what you're going to kind of want to do now is to figure out your study statement. It may have a few different areas in it, which is fine. Ideally, you'll be able to find a multidisciplinary program that includes many of these, and you can start to explore what that means a little bit more. 

So how can you do this? Number one, experience days. A lot of schools have these in Europe. Sometimes they have them online as well. And it gives you a real taste of what it's like to study in that program. Look into the career exploration a little bit. Does your college counselor or your career office at school have ideas about what some of these related careers are? For instance, when Ellie was looking at the Anthropology program, she didn't really understand what those careers were. She could go to the career department at school and find out. We could Google it. I could see if I know anyone who has those types of careers, or who has an anthropology degree and see what they're doing. The other thing you can do is start looking at clubs that are related to those interests. For instance, I did insist that Ellie join a club this year at school, and she joined the Media Club. And she's really enjoying it, which is aligned with these study areas as well, which is pretty cool. 

The other thing is if there are courses that are heavily represented in these programs that you've seen, or these areas of study that you've seen, and you don't know much about it, identify how you could learn more, whether that's through family, online, or teachers at school, getting a book. Again, economics would be something that Ellie would need to explore further if there were some of these programs she was still interested in. And she could do that through talking to a family member, Google search, getting the Economics for Dummies book and seeing if any of it looks interesting. So there are definitely ways to do that. Brainstorm with your family, brainstorm with your counselor about how to explore these further, if needed. 

Slide 15: What’s next?

  • Once you have some study areas defined, it’s time to start looking at specific programs and schools. Check out the How to Choose a University course for tips on this process.

So I really hope that you found this course helpful and you're excited about the possibilities. Once you have some study areas defined, it's time to start looking at specific programs in schools. You might have a few already that you've kind of tucked away for when you start looking at specific programs to apply for. But definitely, you want to be more comprehensive with that. And you can check out the How to Choose a University course for tips on this process. Hope to see you then.