-
Designing an I.T./Video Convergence college degree
Not really sure where to post this. Didn’t see any forums related to education… or any forums that pertained to I.T. convergence in the video/TV industry. I.T. also wasn’t listed as a category in Jobs Wanted.
I never finished a bachelor’s. I was lucky enough to attend college during the last good economy, and a lot of folks left school early to take available jobs then… as did I.
Back then I was a Systems Administrator for an ISP, but after the dot-com bubble burst, I went back to night school (non-degree) for television production. I’ve been a graphics designer and promo producer for a local 24-hour news operation for the last 10 years.
I’m going back to finish a bachelor’s finally… through a program where I get to plan out my degree. I’d like it to be in Information Technology or Information Systems, but with some customization that will make me a better candidate for convergence jobs – that is, I.T. jobs in the TV/Video/Media settings.
There are two things I have to do right now as part of my degree-planning:
1) Find an ideal job listing for a position I’d imagine applying for after graduation and write a mock cover letter.
2) Research college programs elsewhere that offer courses in what I am looking to specialize in, so that we might tailor coursework that might emulate it. I am not sure what might be out there, or what form this might take? Study of video codec algorithms is one thing that comes to mind.
Convergence is a big part of this industry now. I am honestly a bit surprised there isn’t a forum for that topic. My current station was built 10 years ago ground-up with a network video server backend, and has a large datacenter as the heart of its operation, in addition to a network of fiber optic data links, and enterprise television production software from Dalet.
My first position was a ‘media management’ position, where I managed all of the content on our video servers. Even in my current position as a Graphic Designer and Promotions Producer, I am doing user and database management and writing macros for our Chyron systems.
In short, I want to steer my next career move towards I.T.-in-TV if possible. I would really appreciate any advice on the above two bullet points, or general comments on this subset of the industry!
TIA!
-
1 Reply
-
Hey Jonathan,
Interesting question.
In my opinion the last thing that you want to study is media…
Cisco Networking or similar, Microsoft server tools, maybe a bit of Linux?
SaaS backbone/management.
Mobile (smart) phone/tablets integration and delivery.
There money to be made in QC and testing of applications too.
App and web development.Netflix, Lovefilm (Amazon), Yousendit (Google), DropBox, spotify etc would be good places to start for hands-on work experience. They are also the people to tell you what kind of person they would be looking for.
There are also plenty of companies offering Cloud tools for the professional part of the media industry – Adobe and DAX comes to mind.All the Best
Mads@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up