By Holly Luttrell | Reporter
Several Baylor students may be adjusting their schedules, as the media business major is beginning to be phased out from the university’s curriculum.
According to the Baylor website page of majors and minors, the media business major is no longer going to be offered to incoming students for the 2018-2019 school year. Students who are already enrolled in the program will be able to complete their current media business degree plan. The major is offered through the Hankamer School of Business.
The media business curriculum combines business and film and digital media courses.
“It’s basically just like a normal business major,” Katy senior Audrey Mesler said. “You have to take the core classes before you even get accepted into the business school. Once you’re accepted into the business school, you have a little bit more freedom of what you’d like to take.”
The media business major allowed students to take core business classes with an emphasis on marketing, while also developing a well-rounded knowledge of film and digital media. The major was created following an entertainment marketing major that was dismantled after the 2013-2014 academic year.
“I’m a senior now, so when I got here a couple years ago they had just disbanded their entertainment major,” said Mesler. “That’s exactly why I came to Baylor and that’s the major I wanted to do. Then they said they had started this new media business major, so I think it’s interesting how it’s still going through changes.”
Houston sophomore Sofie Hernandez is a media business major who is in the final class to have the option to graduate with this degree. She said she has been told the media business major is being phased out to accommodate faculty changes.
“I met with my adviser in the business school, who explained to me that media business was being phased out after my year, mainly because the professor running it, who had the most connections between the business school and the film department as well as connections for jobs, had left Baylor,” Hernandez said.
In a few years, students will no longer be able to follow a media business degree plan or graduate with this major. However, the marketing and film and digital media classes that media business students took as part of their major will remain in the Baylor curriculum.
“For alternatives, students can just major in marketing and either double major or minor in film and have almost all the same classes, if not the same ones exactly,” Hernandez said.
Baylor students may not be able to graduate with a media business degree once the major is phased out, but they will still be able to study the same topics in the same classes, simply with a different major title.
