DOES THE MILK ROUND STILL DELIVER? The demise of the degree show and why we should do something about it

Producing relevant talent is just one aspect of the work of Skillset academies and accredited courses. Another is to interface and stay in dialogue with industry, and to feed back knowledge collected this way into the teaching system. In order to make this happen and lure industry into these relationships, the university needs to promote the work of its students, who are after all the output of this endeavour.

In the past it was enough to set up a shop-window and invite people to look in. On creative media courses this traditionally takes the form of the degree show, an annual rite of passage for the student, and an opportunity for industry to recruit or at least to get a drink of wine and informally network with the host institution.

But maybe now is the time to examine the degree show from industry’s perspective. A degree show is an excellent vehicle for students to test out their presentation skills, and an opportunity to take stock of their personal development, and even to learn from peers.

But as an opportunity for industry, it is increasingly anachronistic
The traditional degree show is a time limited and geographically locked event that suits universities, not industry. Firstly, it is from an age when there were few Universities around, far fewer creative media students and therefore far less choice. Industry had to make the pilgrimage to these institutions. Secondly, it was an era when industry could synchronise their recruitment needs to the summer, when they knew an able crop of craftspeople would be available for the first time. O tempora, O mores!

Does this sound like it would fit with today’s industry? Of course there are companies who value the degree show for its physicality and social interaction, but I’d suggest they too would be open to alternatives that didn’t lock them into being present at a certain location, at a certain time.

We need to move from degree shows as lone geographical events to shared on-line and physical events and services- increasingly our offering to industry needs to be time-shiftable so THEY can choose when to engage, rather than educators dictating the time. An on-line presence is one way to do this. Now this doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the degree show as a physical event, (as I hope you’ll see later) any more than the on-line job application meant the end of the face to face interview, but it needs to be one part of a spectrum of industry engagement exercises initiated on behalf of our students.

In this particular area students are miles ahead of us- that of the on-line portfolio. As part of a wider compact between university and new student entrants shouldn’t donation of an on-line space for all work in progress, notes, finished pieces, showreel, that will be theirs for life, be standard? Not a Walled Garden VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), but a freely accessible and importantly, a creatively configurable and dynamic on-line environment that symbolizes the life-long learning relationship that the university should be promulgating. This umbilical link with the student beyond the degree programme has many advantages, for instance Alumni tracking, marketing post-graduate courses, informing them of your range of CPDs, and even exploiting the knowledge you gave them by getting them in to talk to the new student cohort.

However it’s important not to forget the physical and social interaction aspect of the degree show, especially in the creative arts. The emotional hit of a Rothko, the eerie physicality of a Mueck, the intensity of a Sharits would all be lost on a browser, and the single screen necessitates against innovative multi-screen work, or certain kinds of interactive and haptic work.

So how do we keep the face to face event, whilst minimizing the problem of geography? I’d suggest by aggregating degree shows into one Super-Show, so that industry needs to come to one event instead of a multitude of diverse locations to find the talent it wants. To an extent this goes on already with Fresh Art, New Designers and the like.
However, there doesn’t seem to be one of these hypermarkets of talent purely for the Skillset academies, and maybe we need to address this. If we are saying to industry and prospective students alike that these academies and accredited courses are producing the most industry-facing and commercially relevant practitioners, why not congregate them together to create a souk of such talents, a vibrant marketplace. Of course this doesn’t negate the ‘time-locked’ issue, but industry will be more prepared to make sacrifices to turn up to a ‘one-stop shop’. Anyway, why shouldn’t such a show last for, say, a month if everyone chips in?

I’m still in my first six months at Skillset, but as a civilian I remember last years Animation and Games Showcase at RSA, a gathering of much new academy talent. I know it also coincided with a dip in available work. No-one was recruiting. I remember industry personnel huddled around talking amongst themselves because they had no work to offer the exhibiting graduates. But it planted seeds- good institutions were clocked and noted by industry. Three months later the situation had changed, by the way. Harry Potter was back in town. If only we could have shifted the event forward three months….aye there’s the rub.

In conclusion, I think it might be an idea to discuss with our educational partners the need to examine new tactics for promoting the best talent in the UK to our industry. A caveat to this is that it may mean rethinking the role of the degree show, and whether the energy and resources sunk into it by the Universities is the best pay-off for the students, the industry, and creative media education itself. Some may find this a wild idea, but that’s the purpose of this particular blog. In this document I’ve proposed both an on-line and a physical alternative that to my mind will complement and add to the efficacy of the UK’s top HEIs. For some institutions the degree show format works well. But I’m really not sure it’s the best solution for our creative media industries.