Is a BA in Multimedia Just a Filler Art Degree? A Former High School Counselor Explains
Last Saturday, I was clearing paper plates and crumpled napkins after my niece’s 18th birthday cake cutting when my cousin Lila tugged my sleeve and pulled me onto the quiet back porch. The smell of leftover charcoal and lemonade still hung in the air, and through the screen door we could see her 17-year-old son Javi leaning against the grill, squinting at his laptop, editing a highlight reel he’d shot of the girls’ soccer game earlier that day. Lila leaned in, voice tight with worry: “He says he wants to apply for a BA in multimedia. All the moms in my college planning group say it’s not a real degree. They say colleges just add it to check the box for art programs and get more tuition money. Is that true? Is it even the same as any other college degree?”
I get this question all the time, even now that I’ve retired from 22 years as a high school guidance counselor. When multimedia degrees first started popping up on college brochures in the early 2000s, I wondered the same thing myself. I sat in on an admissions info session for our in-state public university’s new program back in 2008, and that conversation changed my mind. The answer isn’t black and white, but it’s simpler than most parents think.
To start with: a BA is a BA. No matter what your major is, a bachelor of arts degree follows the same basic structure. It requires around 120 total credits to graduate, roughly a third of which are general education classes—English composition, math, science, history, ethics—that every student has to take, regardless of their focus. The major itself takes up 30 to 40 credits, and that requirement is the same for multimedia as it is for history, English, psychology, or any other BA. It has to meet the same regional accreditation standards that every other degree at the college has to meet. In that core sense, it’s exactly the same as any other undergraduate degree.
That leaves the second question: do colleges only offer it to check the box for art offerings? It’s true that some schools do slap together half-baked multimedia programs. I’ve seen programs that only require 15 credits of major-specific classes, most of which are basic drawing or photography electives, and call it a BA in multimedia just to boost their arts inclusion numbers on rankings websites. But that problem isn’t unique to multimedia. I’ve seen underfunded philosophy programs that only have two part-time professors, and lackluster business minors that don’t offer any internship support or career help. The issue is never the degree name—it’s how the college invests in the program.
Right there on Lila’s back porch, we pulled up the website for the program Javi wants to attend. We counted the requirements together: 36 credits in multimedia major classes, which is exactly the same number of credits required for the BA in communications that Lila had already labeled a “real, useful degree.” Required classes included introductory coding for interactive media, accessible digital design, documentary video production, and a 12-week mandatory internship at a local media or education company. The department had a full-time career advisor just for their majors, and they posted public outcomes from the last graduating class: 72% had full-time jobs in their field within six months, 18% went on to grad school for design or education. The job list ranged from content creator at a local children’s app startup to media specialist at the state department of education to marketing designer for a regional children’s hospital.
Javi wandered over when he heard us talking, and added his own two cents. He wants to study multimedia to build interactive reading tools for kids with dyslexia, because his 12-year-old sister struggles with traditional textbooks and gets overwhelmed by busy worksheets. He’s been making free animated flashcards for her and her classmates for two years, and teachers at his middle school have started sharing them with other parents across the district. This isn’t some random hobby he picked up last month—it’s a problem he wants to solve.
I gave Lila the same concrete steps I give every parent who asks me about this degree. First, don’t write it off based on the name. Pull up the course catalog and count the major-specific credits. If it’s less than 30, and most of the requirements are random electives, that’s a red flag for a filler program. If it’s 30 to 40 credits with required core classes, a capstone project or mandatory internship, that’s a real major, same as any other. Second, check the department’s public career outcomes. If they don’t share any information on where graduates work, that’s a problem. If they do, you can see for yourself if it leads to the kind of work your kid wants. Third, if you’re still unsure, email the department’s administrative assistant and ask for contact info for a recent graduate who’d answer a couple quick questions. Almost every department will agree to this, and you can ask straight out if they felt prepared for full-time work after graduation.
Last Wednesday, Lila texted me a photo of her and Javi at the university’s open house, standing in front of the multimedia department’s student showcase. They got to sit in on a 30-minute taster class where students worked on interactive children’s book projects, and Lila got to talk to two moms of current multimedia majors who said their kids already had part-time work in the field before graduating. She said she’s still nervous. Javi’s going into a field that didn’t exist when we were 18, and it’s hard to shake the idea that “real” degrees are the ones we grew up with. But she’s not worried anymore that it’s just a filler art degree. It’s a real degree, with a real plan, that fits what Javi actually wants to do with his life. Applications are due next month, and we’ll see how it goes. For now, that’s enough.
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