I want to go into communications (ideally something with TV/Film Production) and I’m trying to choose between Tulane and Ithaca’s Park School of Communications.
I’ve been looking into Tulane’s program and it does offer courses and I would get a degree in that field, but with Park School, it’s much more well known and highly regarded in the industry.
So do I go to a school that has the better program, or the school that’s in a more production industry centered city?
My opinion might be an unpopular one, but I am of the mindset that with few exceptions (maybe engineers, or business) undergraduates shouldn’t be choosing “programs” anyway. That’s a graduate school kind of thing. You’re choosing a school for the overall undergraduate education and reputation. Undergrad is about building breadth, and freshman often change their mind about what they want to do. I know this situation is a bit difference since at Ithaca you are considering a school of comm, though.
Generally speaking, if a school is well-known in a field students are recruited out of that school to go do things. Dartmouth is in the middle of nowhere in New Hampshire, but their graduates still end up on Wall Street. Same thing about Middlebury students in Vermont and Bowdoin students in Maine. Recruiters go to where they know talent is. Now, I’m not saying that they go to Ithaca College - because I don’t know a whole lot about communication and whether Ithaca is the type of target school that attracts flocks of them. But going to college in Ithaca won’t necessarily hinder your chances of working elsewhere after college.
That said, if New Orleans has a thriving production industry an internship or part-time job could turn into a full-time post-college job. Personally I’d pick Tulane either way for a variety of reasons.