What path should I take

Graduate School
1

I’m interested in starting a company. Mainly in the music, film, streaming, and media-related industries. By the way, I know it’s going to be tough, difficult, impossible, I’ve read and heard it all. But, I’m interested in applying to USC M.S. in Music Industry, because it has an entrepreneurship element to it. Now, the requirements aren’t rigid but aren’t loose. Cost doesn’t matter to me because getting a master’s by itself is going to cost money. I’m aware of that. So, this is one idea I have and I think based on the three out of eight business plans I have started, this would likely be promising. I have read a lot about the music industry, business-wise over the last decade and it changes a lot, which is great. I’m a drummer, bassist, and I’m trying other instruments.

The second path is applying to NYU’s journalism program, which also has an entrepreneurship element to it. You can pitch ideas to investors etc. The same business ideas I have above, apply to this potential path. There is also an online version of this master’s degree, with basically the same content, opportunities, etc. I’ve talked to the program director and was invited to apply last summer on LinkedIn because they thought I fit the program. I also like writing and I write for various news places right now as a freelancer.

The third path is getting a law degree. My LSAT score was 176 and my GPA is a B+/A- range. I’ve posted this idea elsewhere, but on its own. With the law degree, I would approach it with a business mentality as a means of starting the business. I was told that I’m not going to have a serious problem getting accepted into most law schools with my LSAT score and GPA.

But, my overall problem is what path to take. They revolve around business, entrepreneurship, the arts, and law. Which should I take? I live in the mid-west and there are some, but not a lot of options for me. Plus, I live in a middle-class family and currently attending a liberal arts college in the mid-west.

Thanks

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Personally, I think J-school is a terrible idea for someone who is entrepreneurial. (full disclosure: I think J-school is a terrible idea for most kids as those jobs are dying rapidly)

re: USC MS. Is your family wealthy? If not, its hard to see a ROI on assuming $100+k plus in debt. (yeah, sure, they invited you to apply…MA/MS programs are cash cows for the Uni.)

re: law school…suggest you graduate and get a job at a law firm to get a small taste of the culture

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Thank you!

4

Go to law school to become a lawyer. period, full stop. It is insane to go to law school for the “business” aspects; an MBA is much less time, much cheaper, and fully focused on the ins and outs of running a business- in law school you will get maybe three classes which are at all relevant to what you want to do. Are you really going to sit through Civil Procedure and Criminal Law to wait for the chance to take contracts or intellectual property?

So I’d take that off the table completely, it makes zero sense.

Why not get a job when you graduate to develop some actual business skills and then figure out if an MBA makes sense? Or just apply to an accelerator type program where you will meet funders who can help refine your business plan?

If the costs of a degree program aren’t relevant to you, you don’t know as much about business and startups as you think you do. So I’d start there. Figuring out your ROI is a great next step in your entrepreneurial venture, and spending money you will need to borrow in order to get a credential which is only of modest value for what you are trying to do seems like a poor payout to me.

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If you will have student loans to pay back after law school, that will force you into taking the best paid job possible, which is practicing corporate law in a big city. (Assuming you do well at a top 10 law school).

Get some real world experience first, ideally in the music industry. Business or law school will always be there for you if you decide you need one of those degrees.

(from someone who went to law school thinking of working in the music business, and who has subsequently started a company . . . )

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First of all, you certainly don’t have to go get a graduate degree to start a business. The technology & media landscape is littered with people who began businesses without graduate degrees (Marc Randolph of Netflix, though he comes from a rich family; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook; Morgan DeBaun of Blavity, Inc.; Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel of Snap; Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom of Instagram; Jack Dorsey and the other founders of Twitter; Riese Bernard of Autostraddle; Nick Denton of Gawker Media; Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek of Spotify; I could go on).

What seems to make people successful when they start businesses like this is, well, an entrepreneurial mindset, a good business idea, lots of grit, a good amount of starting capital (often sourced through wealthy relatives), and lots of luck. It’s also not really an accident that most tech & media founders are men. What a master’s degree would probably get you is maybe some more knowledge of an industry and more connections within the industry. However, there are LOTS of ways to get that knowledge and those connections. Networking and working in the industry are arguably better (and definitely cheaper). Cost SHOULD matter to you, because the money you spend repaying those loans you could spend getting your business off the ground.

ESPECIALLY realizing that you are still in undergrad, what I actually think you should do is go work after college. Try to find a job in the industry you want to enter - media companies are a really big thing right now (and honestly, always have been). You could work for a big media company and make connections - or you could join a media-related startup and learn fast and break stuff. Doesn’t really matter, honestly, but work experience is going to be leaps and bounds more valuable for you than a graduate degree. After working for a few years, you’ll be in a better position to evaluate whether you need a grad degree (probably not) and if you do, what kind of degree will be best.

Anything worth doing is difficult, so I wouldn’t allow people telling you that to be a deterrent. Lots of people fail as entrepreneurs and end up just fine.

Out of the three programs you’ve mentioned, two of them simply don’t make sense to me. A law degree isn’t a business degree and there are no “business aspects” to a law education. A law degree is designed to teach you to be a lawyer; people do go into business after getting a law degree, but that’s more incidental. There’s zero reason for you to spend three years in law school. Don’t do that.

A journalism degree also seems like a really strange choice. It’s one thing if you want to make an integrated media company that has journalism elements to it, like Gawker/Gizmodo or something. But even then, you certainly don’t need a journalism degree to do that. (You’ll eventually need journalISTS, which is different.) It also seems like your primary focus is the music industry side, and in that case a journalism degree seems even more baffling. An online degree also doesn’t offer you many of the benefits an entrepreneur would get out of a master’s degree, which is the networking connections. (I also wouldn’t read anything into getting invited to apply. Lots of professional programs do recruiting on LinkedIn, since these programs raise money for a university, and they usually recruit more people than they can accept.) If you’re already writing as a freelancer you almost certainly don’t need a journalism degree.

So that leaves the USC program. To which I still say you should work for a few years instead of going to graduate school. But of the programs you’ve listed, that’s the only one that makes sense. The curriculum seems well-aligned with what you want to do; USC is a juggernaut in this area, and being in LA will put you right in the heart of a thriving hub for these industries, where you can do internships and make connections with the right people to get where you want to.