Fierce Mustang Media
Submitted By: Adriana Brogger
CAEP Staff/Partner
Website: https://www.fiercemustangmedia.com/
Type of Practice: Learner Transition
Program Area(s): CTE / Workforce Prep / Pre-apprenticeship
Region: Northern California
Consortia Involved: Delta Sierra Regional Alliance (San Joaquin Delta)
The Program of Practice
Multimedia students who are earning degrees or certificates in Digital Media, Journalism, Photography, or Graphic Arts at their local community college in San Joaquin County face challenges in securing employment opportunities in their field within the region. This issue leads to a phenomenon known as "brain drain," where skilled individuals leave the area in search of better job prospects elsewhere. In Stockton, we see many of our students leave for Sacramento, San Francisco, or even Los Angeles. Compounding the problem is the fact that many, if not most, of our students are often nontraditional Career Technical Education returning adults, who need specific solutions to address their unique needs. For example, our students are often working adults who need to keep the job that pays their livelihood so they need flexible internships. Or, in some cases, they are parents or other caregivers and still need flexibility.
The key challenges that faculty have identified facing our students:
Limited Job Opportunities: Despite acquiring relevant skills through their coursework, digital media students struggle to find suitable employment opportunities within San Joaquin County.
Brain Drain: The lack of local job prospects prompts these skilled individuals to seek opportunities in other communities or regions, resulting in a talent drain that negatively impacts the county's workforce and economy. Additionally, we have identified gaps in San Joaquin County for digital media-savvy entrepreneurs who can produce content for other local businesses.
Nontraditional Student Profile: Many digital media students are nontraditional learners, returning to education later in life to enhance their career prospects. As such, they require employment or internship opportunities that accommodate their specific circumstances, such as flexible schedules and experiential learning opportunities.
The Response
Our response has been to launch Fierce Mustang Media (FMM) which serves as an experiential learning experience for our nontraditional students and pays them a wage for the services they provide as student interns. Fierce Mustang Media is a student-run digital media, marketing, and public relations firm at San Joaquin Delta College that aims to support local entrepreneurs and nonprofits who need help getting their messages out. Faculty sought funding to launch a two-year pilot of our program by leveraging multiple sources, a grant through Edge Collaborative, Career Technical Education and Strong Workforce Funding, and California Adult Education Program funds. FMM helps our students by leveraging their skills acquired in the classroom and helping them build more confidence in working with real-life clients such as San Joaquin County and Tuleburg Press. The students work flexible hours and meet with faculty as a team once per week. The students are also enrolled in a work-study course on campus through the internship which allows them to earn credit and provides the district with enrollment. Our students are also concurrently part of the Directing Adults on the Right Trac for Employment (DARTE) to support their journey through community college. Our outcomes so far have been overwhelmingly positive with several students graduating, earning certificates and or working as freelancers with clients introduced through FMM.
The Unique Features of the Program
We thrive on community. We see the students where they are and we also have the unique vantage point of being their classroom faculty so we know where they can go. This kind of program can be replicated with other faculty creating work-based learning opportunities for students that meets a community need. We have focused our work with an equity and social justice lens that advances digital literacy within our community. Clearly, our students have digital media literacy skills so we had them produce and host a multimedia boot camp for the community on campus this spring. The opportunity was a confidence-builder for students and it also gave them a chance to engage with community members who want to learn more about digital media. It was a chance to promote our programs, classes, and also our newly launched noncredit certificates. We had about 75 people in attendance who came to our campus and are potential new students.
The Outcome
Our work is very public-facing so our outcomes include a printed magazine highlighting student stories, written by students, as well as documentaries created by our own interns. In addition to that, the deliverables produced by our students for clients are additional deliverables. Please access those materials here: https://bit.ly/CAEP_FMM