Given the pace of change in online and internet marketing do classic print textbooks, for college internet markeing classes, make any sense – except, perhaps, for their historical perspective?

I remember when college professors who “wrote the book” tended to actually be immersed in the subject matter. When is the last time, or first time, anyone has met a college professor actually and actively engaged in . . internet marketing? Like someone actually making serious money online?

How does a college actually manage to “teach internet marketing”? Is the college running “labs” where students launch websites? Does the school offer PPC (pay-per-click) labs, where students actually manage PPC campaigns? Are the students hooked up with companies actively – and successfully – engaged in current credible internet marketing activities? Do the students engage in quality link building campaigns?

I’m beginning to think that the new age of apprenticeship is upon us, where much of what really will matter will only be learned via hands-on engagement with the subject of study. That the “effective classroom” for learning internet marketing will be internships, which – as learning experiences – will be as competitively sought after as was/is entrance to “the ivies”.

I can see college classrooms as a place for learning about internet marketing by dialogue amongst students who are currently interns and apprentices, in groups that may be lead by a school faciliator who secures the participation of subject matter professionals to help guide and inform the classroom dialogue. (Here’s a business model: Offer a service that provides access to qualified internet marketing professionals to colleges and universities.)

But, really, a college professor who is sufficiently experienced and expert to educate and inform a classroom of college students intent on entering the realm of ebusiness and online marketing?

Anyone meet such a person lately? Let me know. I’d like to interview her / him.

Tonight I used Google to search for colleges offering degree programs in internet marketing.

Either there are only a handful of colleges or universities that offer degrees in internet marketing or those colleges that do offer such degrees are sadly lacking in the savvy to get their school’s website to rank for the relevant search phrase”internet marketing degree“.

Assuming there are more than a few marketing degree programs competing for students interested in the emerging field of online marketing there would be a certain irony if only one or two schools garnered all the top search engine rankings, wouldn’t there?

Rasmussen, an educational institution I’ve never heard, clearly “gets it”, that is, gets the convenience of ranking for their school ranking – repeatedly – for the phrase. Rasmussen is right up there at the top of the results for the Google query: internet marketing degree

If you are the department chairman of a college or university that is looking to attract students interested in earning an internet marketing degree you might want to talk to your college’s website designer or website admin about they aren’t doing a very good job of using the internet to market your . . ahem . . university’s internet marketing degree program.

Or suffer the irony.