I know people who have done web development courses at Uni, i even know of agencies that go into uni’s a teach a module on SEO. Each time the people say that it wasn’t exactly what they expected and from what i can tell, they would have probably benefit more just going straight into a web dev/marketing/pr job like most of us did.

I didn’t go to Uni so maybe my view is bias, but i think that in terms of SEO then we should stay away from Academia.

I think that having a degree is a really good start, it teaches you to persevere with something, pick up new things quickly, write at length and accurately, read a lot of things, research different topics and ever go abroad for a year.

Arguably you could get this from going directly into an seo job, but I think that at 18-22, it’s good to be in an environment where you get a lot of support and also meet a lot of different people your own age and also have a good time.

I’ve taught at Uni as part of my PhD (it’s a requirement), and I know that undergrads are mostly a bit lost when they first turn up. They start to settled down in the second year, and by the end of it, they’re ready to go out in business, but for a lot of them it will be a shock. A good thing though.

I just think that the Uni environment is good for growth, and good for learning stuff you don’t learn in business like writing a dissertation with full references. It helps when you start writing SEO reports and so on. Nothing is daunting after the dissertation module!

Also in computing, some will go on research programs like PhD’s and working IR, AI, and digital libraries. I come from this background and it’s really helped me in my SEO work. Without a degree I would never have had that opportunity.

I do however think that coming from a related background to SEO is invaluable. Studying marketing, computing, or business can really give you a good background for SEO. Learning SEO after that means that it now has a context. And the skills they’ve learnt can also be applied, which means you have SEO people from different backgrounds, capable of doing the same job, but with different perspectives on things. That’s cool, I love working with people like that. We learn from each other.

This of course applies to the junior people coming into the profession. The more senior amongst us have a wealth of professional experience to draw from.

cj

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for seo/sem training after all I am the SEM Scholar, lol. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking there will ever be any seo standards, so the whole point is moot.

Thanks for your thoughts! I agree that it will begin to infiltrate certain programmes more frequently, and my friends’ experience with some marketing courses overseas certainly confirms that.

Interesting point about the correlation of being taught and re-teaching content. Since this is often how knowledge works in the workplace, it is probably a good way to have newer subjects spread throughout an academic field. I suppose we already have Teaching Assistants at most schools (and contrary to what I seem to say in my post, most of them were just fine at my college!)

Academia could develop some credible SEO programs by working with industry advisory councils (many technical schools and universities do actually work with such groups).

The teachers would pretty much have to learn as they go (and I took Computer Science from a faculty who were learning CS from Georgia Tech one quarter and reteaching it to us the next — it was an interesting educational experience). Still, you could find qualified learner/teachers in Information Retrieval Science, Marketing, and Web Design who could focus on the strengths those disciplines offer to search engine optimization.

The most likely problem to arise from the early years of an academic program would be the reinforcement of nonsense concepts (like “Links are endorsements” — absolute rubbish) until enough research was published to clean out the bilgewater ideas.

On the other hand, a lot of search-engine research is already being published. It wouldn’t take much effort for people in those other academic disciplines to start publishing research on search optimization. Creating a body of research for the field first would probably help it evolve without some of the nonsense that is coming out of the universities today.

Certifications may help a person land a corporate SEO position, but there’s only one question worth asking when considering an SEO consultant/firm:

* What have you done, and what were the results? *

I certainly don’t ask for a resume that may tout SEO-related academic training.

Furthermore, technology-oriented classes (especially at the university level) are notorious for being “behind the times.”

It’s already hit the online schools (http://www.rasmussen.edu/internetmarketing/Program/im-associates-degree.asp) and is even at the Bachelor and Masters level (http://www.careercollegecentral.com/node/434).

Yes, the change is why we love it, but that doesn’t mean best practices can’t be taught. Even if some best practices are conflicting, both sides of the issue can be taught.

Bottom Line: If people want it, academia will teach it.