MCC as a Music Professional
As an undergraduate in college, the question you will answer most often is “so… what’s your major?” Being a MCC undergrad the question you will answer most often is “so… what does that mean?” Honestly, none of us are quite sure what MCC truly means, and that’s the beauty of our major. MCC can be whatever you make of it. As a high school senior applying for colleges I was entirely lost as to what I wanted to study. I was juggling applications in marketing, business, journalism, and communications. MCC came into my life as my own knight in shining armor. This major has allowed me to explore media academically and professionally while still venturing in journalism and marketing (screw business lol).
I truly had no idea what working with media meant, but I’ve always loved music. As a pre-teen and teenager growing up on Twitter and Tumblr, fan culture had always been an important and ever-present part of my life. In 2015 I started a website dedicated to K-Pop’s BTS and finally understood that I could find a career in music without being a musician, giving how incredibly untalented I had found myself to be after four years of going to music school. Unfortunately, I did not come into MCC with that mindset. Like most MCC students you will meet, I began my NYU academic career thinking I would graduate with a job offer at Buzzfeed or VICE. While that is obviously still a dream (VICE, please…), MCC has encouraged me to break out of the more conventional and traditional media positions.
At first, I assigned myself to the social media bubble. I had believed that as a media student and millennial I was bound to join the workforce as a Twitter content creator and Instagram curator. I did it for a while, didn’t hate it and did it well, but never quite loved it. Naturally I began to panic, questioning my choice in major and chances of being able to make rent. I decided I needed a change and started to really pay attention to the internship e-mails sent to MCC students and was shocked to see so many opportunities with PR firms focused on the music industry. I had grown used to seeing positions at producing firms, casting agencies or big companies that wouldn’t take international students. Then and there I finally realized I was so focused on what others classified as a “media major” career path that I forgot to trail my own.
At first I was confused as to how my MCC skills would be applied to music PR. I had no idea how the concepts of panopticism or an understanding of Freud would help me in the music industry, but alas, I got the position and had to make it work. While no MCC class has taught me strategies on organizing and advertising a music festival, they all have taught me to think critically. While I did perform various roles as an intern, I was initially offered the position as a social media intern. Having “social media” attached to the title gave me a sense of familiarity while applying so I chose to play it safe for my first internship in music and kept it closer to home. I’ve always kept my media lenses on, translating the work that I was doing into social media performance. Intro to Media Studies discusses how media changes our forms of collective life, how we gather, how we share ideas, but more importantly how our social forms and systems of association are shaped. My time at Press Here Publicity opened my eyes to the fact that music was the primary medium through which I’ve been shaped.
As coined by my friend and fellow MCC student, MCC is a decided undecided major. You will meet students that want to be actors, producers, fashion writers, and work in advertising. MCC allows for each and everyone of us to engage with media critically and explore our own relationships with media. As I get ready to begin my second internship in music PR, I’m thankful I can define semiotics and describe the evolution of digital media.
