Kent State University awarded the largest number of undergraduate degrees in its history in May 2018. One of the majors with the greatest growth from the previous year was Digital Media Production, which saw an increase of 43 graduates. The Digital Media Production major at Kent State, housed in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been refocused and its leadership has been set on improving the program.
Scott Hallgren, assistant professor and coordinator of the Digital Media Production program, has set clear goals for the 312 students in the major.
“Our first goal is making sure that our students have an opportunity to create as many shows, movies and projects as possible while they are here, whether they are writing, directing, shooting, recording, producing or editing,” Mr. Hallgren says. “That also means collaborations with a number of other programs, including theater, game design, user experience, art, digital sciences and music.”
Mr. Hallgren is introducing new initiatives to Digital Media Production to see where the program will grow.
“We have a new curriculum, which supports our goal to provide more challenges and opportunities for students to create content, whether it’s for the movie theater, our campus TV station, on the web, VR, online platforms and more,” Mr. Hallgren says. “We’re excited to see where this new direction will take us.”
The spike in graduates may be a result of several improvements made to the program.
“Because of the equipment and facilities, we can offer and the number and type of projects we can offer them, we see more students come to Kent – and we’re happy to have them all,” Mr. Hallgren says. “I think that as we see more film and TV work happening in Northeast Ohio, and in other places outside of New York City and Los Angeles, people will feel encouraged about their future in our industry – it is quite bright.”
Mr. Hallgren says Kent State’s Digital Media Production program is unique because of the collaboration the program has with the rest of the university and student media organizations. The Digital Media Production program has also recently been partnering with the Stark and Tuscarawas campuses to combine ideas and pull skills from their expertise as well.
Mr. Hallgren fully attributes the success and increase in enrollment – and subsequent graduates – to hard work and the experiential learning the students are exposed to in Kent State’s program.
“When we work together, exciting things happen – and it’s how the ‘real world’ works now,” Mr. Hallgren says. “I think students see how many opportunities they can have from the first day as freshmen, and they get excited about that.”
For more information about the digital media production major at Kent State, visit www.kent.edu/jmc/digital-media-production.