In our Media Career Q&A series, Media Career Development Specialist, Lekan Otufodunrin responds to a question by a student of Mass Communication from Covenant University, Otta.
To know the right career choice to make among the various options available will require knowing what they all involve and if it’s what you will want to do and have the capacity for it.
Ideally, students of mass communication should be exposed to all the sequence including print, broadcast, advertising, public relations, digital media and others in the first year.
Having taken introductory courses in the options, a student should have a fair idea of what he or she should opt for.
The decision should not be based on what you like to do alone, but on what you will have the capacity to cope with.
You need to be honest in making the decision based on the skills you have and can build on. You can also ask for inputs from your colleagues or lecturers, but the ultimate decision should be yours.
Take time to ask questions about the details of the possible choices and don’t make up your mind about some unverified information you have heard about practitioners of each aspect of mass communication. Read biographies and profiles of communication professionals to help you know what you need to know.
Even if you specialize in one of the sequences, you need to have a fair idea of what the others entail as you may not immediately find a job in your area of specialization.
Considering that graduates of other disciplines have been able to fit into the media profession and excel, specialization may not really matter until when you graduate.
Internship opportunities and other professional exposure while in school should also help in deciding the career path to take.
In the present multimedia age there is a lot of possibilities in a communication career and what will eventually matter is what skills you have and what you are able to do.
Studying communication may also make you suitable for some other professions like marketing, teaching and others which you may not know until you graduate. Just know as much as you need to know and be prepared for what may come up when school is over.
In my first year at the University of Lagos, I fell in love with the broadcast studios and started mimicking some broadcasters I watched on television.
In my second year, I opted for print when I realized that I could write the kind of articles I was reading in newspapers and magazine. After my internship with the defunct National Concord newspaper, I wanted nothing but a career in the print media and I have since 1987.
I know a Mass Communication graduate who specialized in Public Relations in the University, couldn’t get a PR job and sought employment in a newspaper though she didn’t like to be a journalist.
She asked to be in the photo department which had no space for her and eventually accepted as a volunteer in the online department.
She learnt fast and was able to not only write content for the website and social media but launched the Online Television of the company. She took interest in digital marketing and had to resign to move on to an Agric company as a digital media officer.
She is today a digital media expert.
