Two Handed Warriors

Reflections on Leadership, Faith and Culture by Drs. Sue & Gary David Stratton

A Few Surprises (and some Big Questions) in LinkedIn’s Top 25 Schools for Media Professionals

LinkedIn’s unique big data foray into the world of college rankings

With the education and job history data for over 300 million members at their fingertips, LinkedIn is in a unique position to connect undergraduate programs with a successful career as a Media professional. No one is shocked to find NYU at the top of their list, but USC at #19 and UCLA lower still? Now, that is something to get Hollywood talking.

It’s hard to imagine USC got much of a bump from alumni with the most coveted jobs in Hollywood

Obviously the methodology (below) seems biased against schools training creatives for a film industry where LinkedIn carries little (if any) panache. For instance, stellar non-LinkedIn graduates such as Bryan Singer, Jason Reitman, Judd Apatow, Susan Downey, and Jennifer Todd didn’t help USC’s ranking; and even USC LinkedIn members such as Brian Grazer and Scott Derrickson probably wouldn’t show up as having successful ‘careers’ with the right companies, even if they bothered to keep their profiles up to date (which they don’t.)

Still, it is an interesting list to ponder, not only for high school students considering where to get the best ROI for their media education (Hofstra and Howard in the top five are definitely eye-openers) as well as for anyone contemplating the pro’s and con’s of the future of big data driven decision-making in higher education.

Undergraduate rankings for U.S. Media Professionals

Based upon the career paths of LinkedIn members

Which schools are best at launching graduates into desirable jobs? We analyzed millions of alumni profiles to find out how schools around the world stack up across a variety of careers.

Here’s how we found the top schools for media professionals:

First, we identified the top companies where media professionals are choosing to work.
Next, we found people on LinkedIn who work as media professionals and saw where they went to school.
Finally, for each school, we found the percentage of these alumni who’ve landed media jobs at these top companies, then compared the percentages to come up with the list.