People can now get university degrees in how to become an influencer

Fancy making a career from TikTok or Instagram?

Well now there is an official university degree that will teach you how to become an influencer.

The degree, from South East Technological University in Carlow, Ireland, is available from 2024.

Courses include crisis management, public relations, celebrity studies, social psychology and video and audio editing.

“We knew there was a space and need for this, we just needed to develop the course into a Bachelor’s degree and get it ratified,” Irene McCormick, a senior lecturer at the university, told the Washington Post.

She added she got the idea in part from her young daughter.

She agreed that while the influencer market is changing fast, “it isn’t unlike other aspects of media landscape, and we have been offering degrees in media for decades, so the staff are well skilled.”

Being an online viral influencer can be big businessShutterstock / Maskot Images

Harvard Business Review put the value of the global influencer market at $16.4 billion last year, with estimates suggesting more industry growth in 2023.

Meanwhile, NPR’s Planet Money reported that one survey found 1 in 4 Gen Zers aspire want to be influencers as a career.

SETU will be enrolling 40 students, but McCormick isn’t yet sure how many more will try to apply.

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