I WAS disgusted to read how students taking A-levels in media studies are being blacklisted by some educational institutions (‘Students counting on maths to get good job’, Echo, January 31).
I have an A-grade GCSE in the subject and a joint-honours degree with a 2:1. I have gone on to be “one of Britain’s foremost exporters of online community and e-learning research to the USA and mainland Europe” according to Incisive Media, and have become a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for my Emotivate Project of increasing social change through multimedia education (www.emotivate.org.uk). Media studies certainly hasn’t done me any harm.
An Oxbridge academic called my degree a “Mickey Mouse” degree. I call their degrees “Betty Boop” degrees. Mickey Mouse is as relevant to our economy as when he was in black and white, yet Betty Boop has been replaced by more sophisticated animated adult cartoons.
They say people with media studies degrees can only hope to work in McDonald’s – I’m a director of three limited companies. But what about Oxbridge graduates? Maybe someone on their “classics and oriental studies” degree can hope to work in a topnotch Chinese restaurant in Dursley? Maybe a graduate of their “sexuality” degree could be given a scholarship to do a PhD by doing a photo-ethnography on the Avenue in New York? The truth is, a media studies degree has far more practical use than any Oxbridge degree, with the exception of those with professional relevance like law or engineering, for which their tutorial systems produce better elite professionals than most other universities without this are able to.