Academic Plan

Amelia Rae Koethen

Understanding Media Studies- Fall 2009


                                          Academic Plan

By the time I complete my program at The New School I will hopefully have met several of my goals. While I understand that the education process is always fluid and I’m not expecting to stick to any strict guidelines there are a few things that I believe are essential to my overall goals for my career and my education. The first goal I have set for myself is completing the Media Management certificate. While my primary post-graduate focus is not on working in production or running a business I am not ruling out working as a consultant and feel that this certificate would be a great advantage to me. More than just the business aspect of earning this certificate, I feel that gaining a better understanding of media management will provide me with perspective as I study media ethics and human-computer interactions. I also feel that having a background in the commercial aspects of media will help me relate to potential students I am sure to encounter if I become a professor or any other teacher of Media Studies. My second goal is to learn more about web design and coding. I believe that the internet is the new media of our day and that a basic understanding of this technology should be essential to any media theorist’s coursework. On that same note I am eager to begin taking courses in documentary research and production so that I can learn how to express my research to a wider audience. I am going to pursue the thesis track and am hoping to create a documentary as part of my final thesis. With the skills I obtain through the Media Management Certificate I can then market and distribute any documentary or other form of media I create, which in and of itself would be an incredible learning process as well.

Ideally when I am done with the MA program at the new school I will be prepared to advance to a PhD program either at the New School for Social Research or another university. In particular I have been interested in the Department of Communications and Rhetoric at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, The Modern Culture and Media program at Brown, and the Communications departments at UMass Amherst and SUNY Albany. I would like to focus my studies on ethics, human-computer interactions, and cyber psychology. I have been very interested in the role that the internet is playing with contemporary theology and would love to explore cyber theology in my thesis. I believe that this would translate to a career working as a professor of digital media culture and perhaps consulting with non-profit and religious groups on how to brand and market themselves online and where they fit in regards to social networking. Ideally I would also like to give back to my community by teaching youth about media literacy issues and perhaps creating a youth-run media outlet for the students of my former high school.

This semester has been very challenging for me. I’m currently working in magazine publishing which is a hectic and stressful environment. At the beginning of the semester we received pay cuts and had a few rounds of lay-offs. This led to a strain on my financial situation and a doubling-up of my workload. I found that working 10-12 hour days while juggling financial stress and graduate school to be a significant challenge. Due to a recent second wave of lay-offs and a cutting back of all employee hours I have decided to quit my job, move back home and take courses online next semester. This originally threw me for quiet a loop but as I am from upstate New York and only about three hours away from the New School campus I do not see it barring me from coming in to New York about once a week to attend Saturday classes, special events, conferences and to do research. I am unsure as of right now whether I will complete my entire program online, commute in for classes, or move back to New York but either way I feel confident that I will be able to obtain my goals and complete my program and thesis.

My primary concern with moving out of the area is maintaining and developing connections within the program and staying “in the loop” at The New School. I am planning on becoming more involved with conferences sponsored by the school and would like to speak with other online students in the hopes of creating a network. I am also very interested in attending guest lectures and conferences on other campuses as a visitor, in particular RPI’s program in Human-Computer interaction which allows visiting graduate students from other Universities to sit-in and audit sessions. I’m interested in working with several faculty members at The New School, in particular Deirdre Boyle who analyses death and media. I’m also interested in Paolo Carpignano’s work in sociology and Robert Berkman’s work in social media. If I am able, I would be very interested in Douglas Rushkoff’s course, Technologies of Persuasion. Currently I am taking Media Studies: Idea with Christiana Paul and, while I am overwhelmed by the world of cybernetics (an entirely new subject to me); I enjoy learning about the relationships between man and machine and will hopefully be able to take more courses with Professor Paul in the future. I am also very interested in the conference on Digital Labor and would like to become more involved with that and the Mixed Messages program put on the Media Studies department.I would like to volunteer for, and ideally eventually exhibit my work at that showcase. There were a few professional societies that I have been researching, two I found very interesting were The Society for Technical Communication and The Association for Computing Machinery- Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction. Through attending conferences put on by these and other organizations I can network with other professionals in the field and gain insight into the research processes used in this field.

I have no specific timeline for the completion of this project. While in Albany I will be substitute teaching while I take my online courses full time so my primary focus will be on my academic career. Aside from subbing I will also resume work with a community theater I assisted in establishing where I am currently a board member. I feel that working as a substitute teacher and drama coach are wonderful ways to begin my career in education and will allow me to develop my teaching style and prepare me for teaching on a collegiate level. If I can find research internships in the field of cyber psychology or perhaps work with an online church that would be a very interesting development, but I haven’t begun researching those possibilities as of yet. I would also like to work as a TA as I progress through my academic program but I’m not certain given my distance limitations how realistic that would be. Ideally I will be able to complete my certificate in Media Management by the fall 2010 semester, when I am close to halfway through my credit requirements. I don’t want to limit the amount of time I will take to write my thesis but I will be able to focus on my research and writing full time at that point due to the money I saved in subsequent semesters by moving.

There are several classes within in the Media Studies department that I would love to take, Projects in Advocacy Media, Interactive Media, Media Literacy, and Corporate Responsibility, Media and the Law to name a few. Within the New School for Social Research I am interested in taking Fundamentals of the Sociology of Media, Political Economy of Media, and Ethics. I’m also interested in the Psychology departments Social Psychology course. The course offerings from Parsons, particularly the program in design and technology are a possibility, although, while I would love to become a proficient programmer and web designer I am not sure how realistic this goal is or how relevant to my overall career-goals it will be.

I’m not certain that there are any ways the program can help which are not currently available. To be perfectly honest I’m disappointed in the path my current job has taken and how it has pulled focus from my academic goals. I am looking forward to being much more proactive in subsequent semesters and may be better able to recognize the needs of myself and my fellow classmates then. The one thing I would like to see is a forum for online students to network and socialize. Perhaps that is something I simply do not know exists or something I could assist in creating. I feel like it would be a great addition as I’m aware of how essential having a good support network is to any type of study. I feel confident in the tools provided by the Media Studies department and am excited about working with the available faculty.