Is a BA in Multimedia Just Another Degree? What Parents Need to Know
Last Saturday, my sister Jen leaned across my kitchen table, squinting at the crumb-strewn college pamphlet our 17-year-old niece Lila had spread out, and asked the question I hear from so many parents these days: “BA Multimedia. Is this even a real degree, like any other? Or do colleges just add these to check a box for art courses and get more kids to enroll?”
Iced tea had spilled a little on the corner of the pamphlet, leaving a faint brown ring around the photo of a kid editing a video on a portable tablet. Lila rolled her eyes and wiped the ring with the sleeve of her hoodie, then pulled out her phone to pull up her portfolio. For the last year, she’s edited all the adoption reels for our local animal shelter, designed their printed adoption flyers, and redid their Instagram grid—work that’s gotten 12 more dogs adopted in six months, by her count. “It’s not just drawing pretty pictures,” she said. “I know how to edit videos, code a basic website, and make people care about a story. That’s a skill.”
I volunteer with student orientation at our local public university, so I’ve seen this program up close. Last semester, I sat in on the multimedia department’s senior capstone presentations to see what the work actually looks like. One senior built an interactive digital photo album tool for family members of dementia patients, letting users tag photos with voice notes that trigger happy memories. Another made a series of short documentaries about food insecurity for first-year students that the college administration actually used to change their meal plan refund policy and add two more free food pantries across campus. None of that was just “taking an art class to fill a requirement.”
To answer the core question first: For most accredited programs, a BA in Multimedia is just like any other degree. It has the same core general education requirements any BA does—two semesters of English composition, a lab science requirement, a history requirement, all the same credit hours and GPA rules you need to graduate with a BA in psychology, English, or economics. It’s not a watered-down certificate or a way for colleges to hand out easy degrees to attract more applications.
But that doesn’t mean every BA multimedia program is built the same way. A few years back, I looked at a program at a small for-profit college nearby that was basically just eight online art courses and one general ed class, taught by two adjunct instructors who only worked there 10 hours a week. No dedicated studio space, no internship requirement, no capstone project. That’s the kind of program that’s basically just there to check a box for the college, to hit some enrollment goal for creative students and collect tuition. Those do exist, which is why parents’ skepticism makes total sense.
Back at the kitchen table, Jen still wasn’t convinced. “What if she decides she wants to go to grad school later? Will this degree even count?” I told her it counts the same as any other BA. Grad schools don’t reject applicants just because their bachelor’s is in multimedia, as long as they’ve taken the prerequisite classes for the program they’re applying to. Lila’s already talking about a master’s in digital marketing down the line, and the program she’s looking at already covers most of the pre-reqs she’d need.
The good news is, parents don’t have to guess whether a program is the real deal or just a box-ticking add-on. There are concrete, low-effort steps you can take to figure it out before your kid applies. First, instead of leading with “that’s not a real degree,” try the phrase we walked Jen through: “Show me what classes you’d take, and what do graduates of this program do after school.” That opens a conversation instead of shutting it down, and it gets your kid to do their own research too.
Second, before committing, email the department advisor and ask three straightforward questions: How many full-time faculty teach in the program? Do you require an internship or hands-on capstone project for graduation? What percentage of your graduates get full-time work in a multimedia or related field within six months? Any legitimate program will have these answers ready to share. If they hem and haw or don’t post employment data publicly, that’s a red flag that it might be the box-ticking kind. Third, if your teen already has work they’ve done on their own—like Lila’s shelter reels—ask how the program will help them build on that, not just teach basics. That tells you right away if the program is invested in student growth, or just checking enrollment boxes.
We ended the afternoon ordering pepperoni pizza, and Lila showed Jen a reel she’d edited that morning of a golden retriever puppy that got adopted that week. Jen watched it, and admitted it was pretty impressive that Lila put the whole thing together, music and captions and all, in an afternoon. She agreed to go tour the state campus with Lila next month, to meet the advisor and see the department’s studio space.
I don’t know if Lila will end up sticking with multimedia. She might switch to communications after a year, or decide she wants to go into veterinary technology after all that time at the shelter. That’s normal for any 17-year-old picking a degree. But I do know that writing off the entire BA multimedia as just a box-ticking art add-on isn’t fair. It’s a real degree, with real career paths, same as any other—you just have to do a little homework to make sure the program you’re looking at is built to deliver on what it promises. Right now, we’re just taking it one step at a time, and that’s enough.
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