Stop bashing my Entertainment and Media Studies major

A lot of people have their own ideas of what an EMST major is and what their courses are like on a daily basis. But most of them tend to be based on a lot of stereotypes.

So I’m here to bust a few of those stereotypes. While you’re hating on us, we’re busy following our dreams.

‘You’re all hipsters’

Some super cool EMST students

To me, we all look like your average students. Sure, we may like some things you haven’t heard of, and sure, some of us eat kale and wear thick-rimmed glasses, but you can find that with any major.

In every major, you have your hipster culture, your sorority/fraternity culture and your geeky gamer culture, but the type of people in a major should not define what that major is. Being an EMST major is about enjoying how media works in the world, and that’s what we all have in common – not that we’re hipster.

‘You’re all too lazy to be an EMST major’

Some math problem I did for my pre-Calc friends.

I find that hard to believe. EMST majors are often majoring or minoring in something else like marketing or computer science, which both involve math and science.

Two of our requirements for application to the Grady College of Journalism are that we take a math and two sciences. I just so happened to have tested out of my math requirement, and I’m currently taking Astronomy and studying black holes and how to calculate their mass. EMST requires hard work and perseverance – jobs aren’t handed to us like some other majors. That being said…

‘You’ll never find a job after college’

That’s simply not true, especially at the University of Georgia. Grady College Career Services office is here to help Grady students find work in and out of college.

Every day I get emails filled with volunteer, part-time and full-time job opportunities for EMST majors looking to gain the experience needed for better jobs in the future. You can get a job as an EMST major, you just have to put a bit more work in than other majors. Besides, who wouldn’t want to start working in entertainment and media as soon as possible?

‘You’re basically art majors’

A picture I took on a dreary day in Athens

Just because we can find the beauty in everyday life and make awesome photos and videos from it doesn’t mean we’re art majors. We’re Entertainment and Media Studies majors, meaning that we study the entertainment industry, media, and how media, like photography, video and radio, work in the entertainment world.

When we find jobs, we will be producing media for the entertainment industry. In some ways, the art industry and the entertainment industry can overlap, like if an EMST major is doing a story on an artist. Other than that, the products of each industry remain separate. Art goes to museums and media goes everywhere else.

‘EMST majors don’t know what they want to do with their lives’

That’s just not true. We know all too well what we want to do with our lives, and that’s why we chose the major. I chose this major because I wanted to work with media. Being an EMST major, I can be a journalist and work with print, radio, or television, but I can also work behind the scenes of the film industry, or work with online media.

There are so many things an EMST major can do. It’s not that we don’t know what we want to do, it’s that we want to do so much.

‘You’re all dream chasers’

Well, yeah. We’re in a major we love and we’re going to get jobs that make us happy. That’s a dream we’re achieving. We’re going to meet famous people and be famous ourselves. We will have lived out our dreams, not regretting a moment.