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New Media Graduate Schools?
Skwirl asks: "I'm a journalism and computer science double major at Indiana University and I'm just about to finish my undergraduate career. If I go to grad school, I want to find a program that will accommodate someone with both writing and coding skills. At IU there's the new School of Informatics, as well as, the Masters in Immersive Mediated Environments programs. Both of these programs are intriguing, but I'm wondering what other schools have graduate programs focusing in New Media."
You've asked a question near and dear to my heart. I graduated from IU last year with a double major in classical studies and cognitive science, and only a minor in computer science. After an internship at IBM (coding Java--bleah), I moved back to the Silicon Valley and got a job as a programmer here at Vovida, a partly open-source voice over IP company. (Now I spend most of my time coding Perl [not CGIs as you might think, but GUI apps]. Ahh, much better. ;) )
What is the point of this story? If you're interested in going into industry, you shouldn't bother going to grad school. You will likely learn more in the field actually creating real- life, commercial sites than you will learn doing projects in grad school. You'll be paid well rather than subsisting on a stipend, and I can guarantee you that x years of experience will look better on your resume than x years of grad school.
Do you feel you have the skills you need to do your work? I would suspect you do. I am certainly able to do my work with only a CS minor (though, in fairness, I am largely self-taught. Pretty much nothing I learned in school has any relevance to my work). Remember, you need just the skills, not the experience. The experience will come from actually working in the field.
My answer, then, is that you shouldn't go to grad school unless you have a compelling reason. I can see only two good reasons to go to grad school, and both involve getting a Ph.D. The first would be that you want to be a professor someday. The second would be that you want to work in research, in a place like Bell Labs, one of IBM's research centers, or analogous entities within other large companies.
Good luck. I know you'll make the decision that's right for you. I hope this post makes it a little easier. :)
Vovida, OS VoIP
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