Full Sail’s online Master’s degree is achieved through an
accelerated program that is obtained within a twelve-month procession.
This blog is going to give an overview of the classes and
the many skills obtained through participating in this online educational environment.
Following is a list of classes taken in sequential order
from the beginning of the Master’s program until its conclusion:
Media Literacy and Research Methodologies is the first class
taken within the Master’s program at Full Sail. This class, basically, gives
the student an overview of how to master the online environment. It is also
where students begin to learn how to research different media figures,
companies, and create a review based on their research. Full Sail’s online
environment is setup so students have assignments due on the same days each
week. For example, since the week begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, students
have discussion assignments due every Wednesday and 2-4 additional assignments
are due by Sunday evening at 11:59 p.m. (eastern standard time).
During each week students have a plethora of activities to
complete that include: eBook assignments, lectures to read, blog posts to
enter, interviews to watch and also each week students are responsible for
attending a Wimba session with Instructors that can be viewed live or on the
archive. From the very beginning, Full Sail students know they are going to be
extremely busy gaining their education. This class also teaches students how to
juggle work, family responsibilities, and play. Students that attend Full Sail
University are more than equipped to handle several irons in the fire at any
given time.
Executive Leadership is the second class taken within the
Master’s program at Full Sail. This class teaches students the correct way to
go about making decisions. It gives students an outline to follow with regards
how to go about making meaningful decisions “the first time.” It teaches
different styles of leadership and gives definitive ways to measure success.
Students are encouraged and taught many pieces of information during this class
however the ones that stood out the most to me were to:
Show humility and do not be afraid to try it again.
Slow down and ask questions.
Not be afraid to operate at the edge of chaos.
To have a love of making decisions.
Ask but do not be afraid to listen.
Do not hesitate to get some help.
Let go of our ego.
Project and Team Management is the third class taken within the Master’s program at Full Sail. This class begins to prepare students for putting together their own business plan. How? By having each team of five or more work towards putting the pieces of a business plan together. Each team is given an RFP (request for proposal). The teams then answer the RFP by coming up with a fictitious name for their company, finding non-profit organizations to work with, locating investors and celebrities, scouting out locations and vendors for the event. The business plan is hands on and done in real-time in that students are required to actually make calls and find out prices and information regarding the non-profit and celebrities they would be working with.
Business Storytelling and Brand Development is the fourth
class taken within the Master’s program at Full Sail. In this class students
are required to focus on the brands of other companies and how they are
marketed. Research is done on companies like Apple, Oprah and Microsoft.
Students learn about brand identity and how important it is for a company’s
brand to speak for what the company does. Students also learn how to market and
advertise their companies through storytelling. One of the many ways that are
researched is blogging.
Entertainment Business Finance is the fifth class taken
within the Master’s program at Full Sail. In this class students learn how to
put together, read, understand and use a pro forma, straight-line method,
weighted average cost of capital, profitability index of investments,
depreciation, amortization schedules, ROI (return on investment) and break-even
analysis. Students begin researching top-level stars like Jay-Z and Madonna’s
earnings and where they come from. Students’ even research one of the most
popular ticketing agencies in world, Live Nation. Students at Full Sail learn
to read, understand and use Yahoo Finance, the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500.
Negotiation and Deal-Making is the sixth class taken within
the Master’s program at Full Sail. Students begin to research case studies of
contract negotiations. Some of those researched are:
Conan O’Brien negotiates with NBC
Paula Abdul negotiates with “American Idol”
Lebron James negotiates with the Miami Heat
Students are given a current and actual case to study and negotiate. The negotiation process entails the students role-playing the parties involved in the case study and getting the best possible deal for all parties involved. This class teaches students to come out with a win-win instead of focusing on beating or coming out ahead of the other party. The class focuses more on developing lasting business relationships that allow the parties involved to benefit as equally as possible as this promotes those healthy types of interactions.
Product and Artist Management is the seventh class taken
within the Master’s program at Full Sail. In this class students research
artists and find something the artist is known for. For example, the singer
Ne-Yo is known for wearing different styles of hats. When students find the
artist that interests them they put together an investor pitch that includes
financials that begin with startup capital and end with how much of a return
the investor will get on his/her monies.
Advanced Entertainment Law is the eighth class taken within
the Master’s program at Full Sail. This class takes students behind the scenes
of the law and how it affects the artist as well as the management team.
Students study, discuss and practice defending various companies and
individuals in cases of intellectual property, endorsement contracts, trademark
and copyright law, infringement, CAN-SPAM Act and many more. Students research
court cases and discuss things that could have been avoided and are taught how
to copyright and trademark business names and logos. During this course,
students are also required to locate entertainment lawyers within their cities
and interview them for their blog posting.
Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution is the ninth
class taken within the Master’s program at Full Sail. As in the other courses, students
are extremely busy as they learn to put together treatments for television,
movies and film. They practice writing query letters to shop their businesses;
they contact and interview executives at television networks for their blogs
and study digital and traditional ways of publishing and distributing their
work. Lastly, students are taught how to protect their creative content from piracy.
Digital Marketing is the tenth class taken within the
Master’s program at Full Sail. This class teaches students how to market
themselves on and offline. Students learn how to make quick response codes
(a.k.a. qr codes) for IPhones; how to track visitors to their blog; how to add
Google sitemaps to their blogs and websites and add surveys and questionnaires
to their sites for customer feedback. Students are encouraged to research
companies similar to their own and check those company’s demographics, how many
visitors they receive per day and how long the average visitor stays at their
sites.
While in class, students researched videos that had gone
viral and how and why they may have reached viral status. They researched blogs
that had large followings and discussed why so many people were drawn to that
particular site instead of others. Students were also required to put together
complete digital marketing proposals listing outcomes and the different ways they
would use to measure success.
Business Plan Development is the eleventh class taken within
the Master’s program at Full Sail. During this class, students are developing
their own business plans, which are unique to their businesses. Students use
all their knowledge gained over the degree program and begin implementing it.
This formal business plan is started and consists of the following main
headings:
Executive Summary
Market Positioning Summary
The Marketing Plan
Operations
Financials
Technology
Products and Services
Accomplishments and
Appendix
Final Project: Business Plan is the twelfth class taken within the Master’s program at Full Sail. In the final class of the degree program, students put the finishing touches on their business plans. When students have completed the main and sub headings of the final business plan it consists of 25-30 pages and covers all information needed to assist the student in obtaining funding.
Once the business plan is complete students develop an
elevator pitch, which teaches them to talk with someone in 30 seconds or less
and give them a complete overview of their company and what it offers. Full
Sail students are then encouraged to put together a Keynote or PowerPoint
presentation that can be shown to potential investors along with an executive
summary with each taking no more than 5-8 minutes of time.
In the final week of this course, students are required to complete
a reflection assignment and write about all the courses and what was done in
each, put together a final blog post that looks toward the future and
elaborates on current and future trends within the entertainment and discuss
any accomplishments or plans they have for the future.
With a hands-on curriculum like this, it is beyond doubt
that Full Sail students are put in a position for success!
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