Let Me In: A Document Analysis of Essays Written by Applicants to an Advertising Degree Program

AbstractAn analysis of 145 essays written by students seeking admission to an advertising degree program at a large Southeastern university revealed several reasons for pursuing a major in advertising. Whether students saw themselves as having an expressive orientation or a management orientation, or both, they felt they were a "good fit" for the profession. Students called upon a variety of experiences including classes, jobs and internships to help them choose a major. Students believe that majoring in advertising will lead to career success, and most see themselves headed to careers in creative types of work at the time they enter the major.Do advertising students have realistic notions about working in advertising? What do advertising students think advertising practitioners do? Why do students think they belong in the field? With all the changes occurring in the advertising landscape, are student reasons for studying advertising changing as well?These are questions that educators and practitioners sometimes ponder, often when confronted by a student who wants to be in advertising because she's always enjoyed watching commercials or because it seems like a "fun major."In this study, 145 essays written by students seeking admission to an advertising degree program at a large Southeastern university (hereafter referred to as "Big State U") were examined for student motivation for pursuing an advertising major. All essays submitted by applicants for three academic years, each five years apart, were selected to maximize the opportunity to find differences. The essays were submitted in the academic years 1997-98 (46 essays), 200203 (38 essays) and 2007-08 (61 essays).BackgroundThere are several studies about why students major in advertising. A survey of 465 students (Ross & Richards, 2008) from 10 different universities with advertising or advertising and public relations programs in nine states reported that the five most used words to describe the reason why students became advertising majors were "creative," "interesting," "like it," "exciting," and "fits me." The top three career choices for these students were event planning, public relations and account management.In a survey of 1 79 advertising majors at two universities, Fullerton and Umphrey (2002) found that students were drawn to the major because of its creative aspects and found the major to be "interesting." In a study of career aspirations among 1,226 students (Fullerton, Kendrick, & Frazier, 2006), student comments regarding what it would be like to work in advertising clustered around "fun/exciting/ adventurous/interesting" (46%), "creative" (31.1%), "challenging/competitive" (22.2%) and "hard/stressful/demanding" (19.3%).A national survey of 1,045 student ad club members (Fullerton, Kendrick, & Frazier, 2009) found that the most frequently selected position within an advertising-related company was that of account manager, preferred by 57.4%. Other preferred jobs were marketing (46.3%), art director (36.2%), public relations (33.5%), brand manager (31.9%), media planner (31%), copywriter (29%), researcher/ planner (22.4%) and corporate communications (21%). Advertising majors - compared to other majors - had greater interest in copywriting and traffic and expressed less interest in marketing and public relations. In sum, these studies, all of which use survey methodology, agree that students are drawn to the major because of its creative aspects and find the major to be "fun and interesting." The findings are mixed as to whether most students plan to pursue the business side or the creative side of advertising. This could reflect different student populations, different advertising curriculum philosophies or different points in student lives when the surveys were administered.The study presented here is different from these earlier studies in three ways. First, it examines reasons for choosing the major at the time the student is entering the major, not while being a major or at the point of leaving the major and entering the work force. …