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Serious about creative advertising

There have been diploma programs in advertising at Humber College for years, but this September its first degree program got underway with 37 students enrolled in a four-year BAA.

DAVID CHILTON

[ 2005-11-09 ]

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Michael Rosen, Humber College program co-ordinator, says the Bachelor of Applied Arts Degree in Creative Advertising attracted 300 applicants and has exactly the same entrance requirements as any university.

Michael Rosen, program co-ordinator, says the Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Creative Advertising attracted 300 applicants and has exactly the same entrance requirements as any university, citing as an example the Bachelor of Design program at York University.

"Academically, they (his students) are a very high functioning group," Rosen says, pointing out that all of them did well in high school and some of them graduated with exceptional marks. That academic pressure isn't likely to ease up.

Rosen says as well as the creative side of their program, the students also have to take university-level subjects. This semester they are taking a psychology course and an English literature course; next semester, sociology and business are on the agenda. "We expect to turn out very bright, well-rounded students," Rosen says.

As well as their in-class study, students in the program will also have to complete a paid 14-week work term at some point in their four years. At the moment, Rosen says it isn't certain in what year that will be. In the last two years of their BAA, the students will have to spend some time working at the Ad Centre, which Rosen says is essentially an ad agency on campus that handles many of the advertising demands of the college.

Tuition is about $4,100 for Canadian students.

The only other degree program in advertising in the province is offered at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. Diploma and certificate programs in advertising, however, are another matter. Humber maintains its two-year program in addition to the BAA, says Rosen, and students who apply to the diploma and the degree programs are quite different. He says the former want to learn their craft and start work as quickly as they can; the latter's parents have allowed them to study anything they like as long as it leads to a degree.

Many other public and private colleges in and around Toronto offer either certificates or diplomas in advertising, copywriting and creative design. Among the public colleges are Seneca, which also has a joint program with York University, Centennial and Georgian College in Barrie. As with every course of study, students should check the calendar of each school carefully.

Rosen says the composition of his first class is 24 females and 13 males, all of them in their late teens or early 20s, such as Jorgen Stovne, a 23-year old Norwegian, one of two international students in the class. The other is from Venezuela.

Stovne says he spent a year at Markville Secondary School in Markham in 2000-2001 and decided to come back to Canada to study some more. Interested in drawing and graphic design, Stovne says advertising was a natural choice and he chose Humber because of the quality of the Canadian teachers he'd had during his year here.

"The program so far is as hard as it should be, and just easy enough to follow," Stovne says. "The hardest part is to express myself and my ideas on the creative side as my vocabulary is lacking the words I need." Four years at Humber, however, will take care of that problem, he adds.

Doug Linton, chairman emeritus of Toronto ad agency Ambrose Carr Linton Carroll, sits on the program's advisory board. He calls the four years the students will spend at Humber "helpful" because it will allow them to start their careers in the real, practical world of advertising with the basics already in their pocket.

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