MS 190: Authorship is the course website for the Fall 2006 Media Studies senior seminar at Pomona College in Claremont, California.
Why did you choose to major in MS?
Submitted by ofcabbagesandkings on 10 December 2006 - 2:00am.
This should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Finals make me cranky.
But… I’m beginning to wonder what exactly is so critical about critical studies. The TSL writes, "You say post-modern structuralism, I say meaningless bullshit," and maybe they have a point. A lot of the things we talk about from critical theory seem a little circular and detached from the real world. “What is art?” for example. We will never come up with a definition upon which we can all agree; so why, over the course of the course of four years, have I probably wasted about 5 class hours discussing this question and am actually still kind of confused whether this would be a question that would even be considered part of critical studies? (The economist in me is about to come out .. sorry guys!) With tuition at about $31,000, each class hour comes out to about $120. That means I have spent $600 trying (to no avail) to pinpoint what is art. Is this worth it? What do you guys think about our field of study? What topics frustrate you? What has excited you? Why did you choose to be media studies majors in the first place and what has kept you here?
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on Being a Media Studies Major
First, cabbages, you should take anything TSL says with a grain of salt as well. They exist for entertainment as much as news and that sentiment they articulated is one that I feel is popular amongst students who don't major in any sort of critical study. But that could be my own inferiority complex from living all semester with social science (and math and neuroscience) majors.
Second, I have a problem with breaking tuition down to directly correlate with class hours. My sponsor tried to use this on me freshman year to prevent me from skipping classes. To say that I'm throwing away $120 on an hour-long class is not exactly a fair representation, I think. You can argue, but I've heard that the school's operating budget comes down to about $60,000 per student per year, which means that our room and board and tuition don't even cover all of the expenses the school has. These are all things that we pay for also. Like financial aid, admissions, maintenance, housekeeping, groundskeeping, OCL. Being a part of a residential community means that there tons of things outside of classes that we have to pay for. I recognize this is tangential, but I would put the answering of "What is art?" at probably more around $300. But I'd like to hear other estimates as well.
Finally, why am I a Media Studies major? I am reminded of this pretty frequently, because though my suitemates love to disparage my major, they love to talk about what we study. They've all enjoyed at least one of the mashups they've heard emanating from my room as I do thesis research. At dinner tonight, we spent a good twenty minutes talking about MMORPGs and other virtual games like that and I found out that one of them was an avid player in City of Heroes (I think...where everyone is a superhero and you gain powers by killing bad guys) and another was addicted to the Sims and Rollercoaster Tycoon. I thought to myself, "How lucky am I that I get to talk about my studies outside the classroom; whereas, no one's really interested in or capable of talking about whatever it is that my math major friend studies." I chose this major because it dealt with all kinds of things that I thought were cool anyway, and the material is so pervasive in people's everyday lives, at least on a basic level, that other people are fascinated by it. Even if they don't know it/aren't willing to admit it. I know this won't necessarily give me applicable skills in "the real world" but that's not really the goal of a liberal arts school. TSL can say what it wants about bullshit, but its a medium just like any other, which means that we study it also. I know this has been kind of rant-y, but I get kind of tired sometimes of some of the ridiculously unfounded criticisms that get levelled at our major and other similar ones also. I wouldn't have enjoyed school nearly as much in any other major. I would, however, be interested in hearing more critiques from other Media Studies majors.
word.
I agree with your comments (mainly the last section), being able to analyze films, television, advertising, and other things that consume my life is pretty interesting, and I know that I wouldn't have enjoyed myself as much in any other major. I do get annoyed when people say "Why are you complaining about work? I have a P-chem project to work on, you're writing about video games!" (because apparently science people are cool enough for abbreviations....). People take the subject matter so lightly that I sometimes feel like the schmuck of the academic community, but I guess I know better not to let it get into my head. I sleep better at night knowing that my P-chem buddy can't write about half of the things we learned in Intro to Media Studies.
On the other hand, I do have some beef with the major, which is entirely my fault (taking different classes may have changed my opinion a bit). After spending all of my time learning about the "power" of media, it would be wonderful to think about how to use this for "good." I tend to get a bit annoyed analyzing the death out of something, and then leaving it alone. I really struggled with the fact that sometimes media studies isn't as practical as I want it to be. (I know this seems like an odd and perhaps wrong critique, and perhaps I haven't articulated myself well, but it's been a long couple of days.) I guess that's why I've decided to leave Media Studies behind after I graduate.