We’ve long since passed the point when all university students have to have a laptop in order to keep up with their courses; but now the University of Missouri Journalism School is requiring students to be in possession of an Apple iPhone, or alternatively, an iPod touch, in order to enroll in classes.
Even though the iPhone will be a “mandatory” requirement for journalism students at the University, school representatives say that the requirement will not be strictly enforced, but is more of a strong suggestion. The associate dean of the University, Brian Brooks, has made it clear that all students should have access to an iPhone or iPod touch to facilitate recording and playing back lectures. Brooks points to recent research which suggests that students who record and playback a lecture retain about three times as much information from the course.
School officials say that the iPod has been officially listed as a requirement to allow students to budget accurately for enrollment in the journalism school, and to make appropriate estimates when applying for any financial aid. If the Apple devices were not listed as requirements, students would be unable to include their cost on financial aid forms. This suggests that the university primarily listed the iPhones as a requirement in order to help students get funding for them.
Dean Brooks also noted that students could potentially use laptops, other smartphones or MP3 players to record lectures, but the university recommended and iPhone or iPod touch in particular out of all these options.
It’s puzzling in some ways that the university would single out the Apple devices as mandatory course requirements, when so many other portable devices would do essentially the same thing. In fact, there are numerous smartphones on the market with quite robust audio recording and playback features, and any self respecting laptop would do an even better job, providing more control over recording quality, playback and editing of audio material.
But regardless of the motive behind the decision to make iPhone’s mandatory, the news is certain to please Apple, who could benefit to the tune of thousands of new sales just from the University of Missouri alone. Even better, being officially recognized as a “necessity” by an institution of higher education lends credibility to the idea that ALL students should have an iPhone, not just those enrolling in journalism school.
A trend like this could quickly spread to other schools, and the iPhone could become as ubiquitous on campus as the laptop computer.
