As a Digital & Content Marketing student at York University School of Continuing Studies I will share my personal experiences in this blog post. I chose this program because I already know how to code an iOS app using Xcode for Apple devices. I needed to know how marketing in digital world would have been done. Because I want to create my own app and I want to be able to promote it by myself.
What program offers? In class activities, speakers and content...
Covering Search Engine Optimization(SEO) was the most interesting thing for me. And I know as a fact that my classmates were also here to learn more about SEO and its components at first. I learned how to optimize websites to rank higher on search engine effectively. However, this course not only taught me the aspects of SEO but also how to create appealing content that resonates with audiences. Before this education that I got in Digital Marketing, I was thinking that a good SEO was enough for a website to rank higher. Now I am even more grateful that I took the course because I learned that is not the case and there are several other things to do to be seen and get clicks.
Whole List of the Courses
Program also offers practical experience with in-class activities but I don’t find them very useful. Because the course is theoretical most of the time, practice should be done with real projects with real clients in my opinion. The idea is great, we are learning and we are practicing right after. However, when it comes to reality nobody likes to do anything after learning bunch of theoretical things in lessons. Especially when we have online classes due to weather conditions or due to some other commitments in instructors' life, it is best not to have an in-class activity. It’s already hard for students to pay attention to the in-class activities, but having them online is nearly impossible to do a group work. People are joining in a meeting and leaving their computers just to be seen online. When it comes the time to do some group work, they are not even at the computer and my group is starting with 1 people less already. That means more work for every other person in this temporary group for a non-graded project and it is frustrating.
Teaching style is interactive
All of the instructors are trying to keep the classes interactive as much as possible. They always have something to ask or they are always trying to keep us interacted. Students who want to be interactive and who likes to learn this way would benefit even more than any other student. If you don’t like interactive lessons don’t get scared easily because if you don’t want to talk or if you don’t have anything to say at that time it’s totally okay no one is going to judge you or give you bad marks just because of it. In addition, we have lots of presentation days here you can see me and my friends presenting our group work in our class.
There are 5 people. One of them is holding a paper and looking down towards it. There is a big table "York University School of Continuing Studies" written on it. There are one speaker and two laptops and some wire on the table. In the background there are 2 projected screens. Executive summary is projected on the screen.
Exams, assignments and grading
In general, there are no exams. I had 8 different classes throughout my course and there were only 2 exams that I can remember. But they were only there to test yourself. Even if you fail from these exams, you could still pass the course because their percentage is so low, like 5%-10%. The big portion of your marks are coming from assignments. These assignments are 50%-70% of the course. You need to be present in the class and listening to your instructor to be successful with these assignments because these assignments are about the course itself. You will be learning how to do these assignments -which are also similar to real life digital marketing work- in class. As long as you are present and listening, you will be doing things right in your assignment and collecting attendance points freely. The more you are in the class the more you are close to grabbing the diploma at the end.
As it comes to instructors, they were top-notch:
All instructors were experts in their fields, they were always able to answer student questions.
Instructors strengthen the learning experience by inviting industry professionals to share their insights and real-world experiences.
There are 3 lines of tables with many chairs on the left and right sides of the tables. On the right corner there is a blackboard on the wall. At the north side there are 2 projection screens hanging on the ceiling facing 2 projectors on the middle of the ceiling.
What are the down sides?
As it comes to campus life, there is no campus life for SCS students. To criticize more, I personally don’t even think York University sees SCS students as their own. There was a career day only held for York University Bachelor’s students in which SCS students were not accepted in. This makes students feel discriminated. It would be nice to be able to go in and have the experience of the atmosphere inside even it wasn't for SCS students because we are students too. There should have been another kind of filter to the event. The technological problems never seem to end in classrooms. Every other day an instructor having a problem with the projector, one of the two doors to classroom is not working properly and it isn’t getting fixed either.