Should videographers go to college?

If you’re a young videographer, you might be wondering if it’s worth it to go to college. With all the information available through YouTube videos and online courses, college might seem like a debt you don’t need to incur. And everyone knows that you need to get your own experience to make it as a creative anyway. Add this with the increasing cost of college in the current economy, and it seems like a no-brainer. But don’t make a “dropping out of college” vlog just yet. Let me break down some of the peripheral benefits of college, so you can make a more informed decision.

Network 

When you graduate college, you’ll walk across a stage, get handed a diploma, and then get kicked out of student housing the next day. And when you drive to the city to start working in the industry, you won’t get treated any kinder. No one in the commercial film industry cares where you went to college, or what your diploma says. They care if you do good work and if they can trust you. Even if you’re not well known online, your network is familiar with your work, and your work ethic. And they’ll bring in 80% of the gigs you’ll get. 

So if a network is essential to working as a videographer, the question is: does college give you that? And is it worth the cost?

This of course depends on who you went to school with and how well you connected with them. But generally speaking, I’d say a college network is definitely worth the cost. 

A majority of my network I either went to school with, or was introduced to by someone I went to school with. And even though I wasn’t hired by many of them directly after school, as time has gone on, more and more of my classmates have found themselves in hiring positions. And they call me. This will only increase as we grow older. All boats rise together.

This isn’t to say that you can’t make friends or grow a network outside of college. It’s just a lot harder. I was able to prioritize relationships and creativity in college, without having to worry about making a full-time income. The videographer who moves to the city with no network has to make one from scratch in a sink-or-swim situation. The videographer who moves to the city with a college network gets their start with friends and colleagues around them who already know and trust them. 

No one has asked to see my diploma in over six years of freelancing. But my network has connected me to gigs that have sustained me, and have more than paid off the cost of college in only six years. 

Experience 

You’ll only get hired for the work you’ve done before. So the question is: will college give you a portfolio to point to in the real world? This depends on what kind of work you want to do.

Generally speaking, film schools are great at teaching traditional media. They have access to expensive gear and resources that you can practice on in a closed environment. College gives you experience for traditional sets without the sink-or-swim feeling of a traditional set.

So film school might be worth it…if you want to work on traditional films.

If you don’t want to work on traditional films, and your interest is more in new media, social media, or experimental stuff, then film school might not be for you. If you’re looking to push the boundaries in any area, you’ll need to do that on your own time and your own time. When this happens in college, before college, or after college it’s up to you. But the fact remains: you need to show the work you want to do. 

I know many videographers who studied something other than film in college. Communication majors, business majors, advertising majors, even computer science majors. While they were in college gaining this other skill, they were using their free time to make their experimental work. and this was a great choice for them. So consider what kind of work you really want to create, and where you can get that experience. Because that’s the most important thing.

Hard Work 

You can have an amazing network, and all the experience in the world, but if you don’t know how to work hard, people won’t hire you. Making videos requires late nights, early mornings, and long days. There’s no way around this.

So our third question is this: does college teach you to work hard?

My answer to this is unequivocally yes. Even as industries evolve, and college learnings become obsolete, there’s something the college teaches you they can never be taken away. How to learn. 

In order to stay relevant in any industry, you need to continue your education on your own time. And if you don’t know how to work hard, and you don’t know how to teach yourself something new, then your skills will depreciate over time and you’ll get left behind. Colleges design to challenge you. Late nights. Early mornings. Long days. Big papers. Difficult tests. Whether you really do work hard, cheat your way through, or play sports, there’s no way to get a college degree without working hard.

I don’t think learning how to work hard should cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, like it does in college. But if you’re interested in what you’re studying, and you don’t have another way to learn these things, then it might be worth it for you. 

So, should you go to college? Ultimately that’s up to you, just as your network, your experience, and your work ethic is up to you. College is a good arena to learn some of these things, but by no means is it essential. It just all depends on where you want to get these things.

Good luck.