How York College of Pennsylvania relies on Storyblocks to support their students’ education and build future careers

York College of Pennsylvania is a private college that offers 70+ baccalaureate majors to 3,500 full-time students. They also have a student-run radio station, WVYC-FM (88.1) that has served as the voice of York College of Pennsylvania since 1976. York College uses Storyblocks to prepare students for success in their future careers, achieve high grades, and build the caliber of the school’s professional programs through awards and industry recognition.

The wide variety of content available and easily accessible within Storyblocks has been invaluable for York College, whose audio program is ranked 8th in the country out of 300+ schools by the Broadcast Education Association (BEA). By using Storyblocks as the exclusive provider for all their stock needs, students and faculty can easily and quickly find all the content they need for their projects or work. From the first day of freshman year until the day they graduate, students have access to Storyblocks to use in any of their classes or projects.

Beyond the 130 students using Storyblocks daily for their classes, Storyblocks is also utilized by WVYC, the college’s marketing department, and other faculty. Using content from Storyblocks, both professors and students from York College have won awards from BEA for their work. In turn, those awards have helped York College of Pennsylvania raise the stature of the college overall.

The challenge

Jeff Schiffman joined York College as a professor and radio station manager for WVYC in 2013 after 30 years of experience in commercial radio. Soon after joining, Schiffman saw that students were using CDs to source music for creative projects. He knew that practice needed to quickly change to keep pace with industry advancements in technology and improve the accessibility of creative assets for students. Schiffman immediately prioritized modernizing their tech stack and harnessing 
an all-in-one resource where students could source content more effectively, while also building their knowledge of industry-standard platforms such as Audition, Adobe Premiere Pro, and After Effects.

How Storyblocks solved the challenge

Ease of access enhances preparation and collaboration

With students logging in daily to use Storyblocks across seven different classes, an easy-to-use platform is essential to creating a seamless educational experience for students. As a platform administrator, Schiffman manages access for 40-50 students every year – a process he says that Storyblocks makes simple and easy.

Schiffman also knows that students balance multiple projects at any given time, often on tight project timelines. Having access to After Effects and Premiere Pro templates helps students create faster and more efficiently, since they can easily find intros, outros, and other creative templates with just a few easy clicks. This all-in-one access is particularly helpful for Schiffman and students, who are sometimes geographically separated when working and studying in a hybrid academic environment.

It doesn’t matter where you are. I have students who are commuter students who might be at home working on a project, and I also work at home doing projects, too. I love that ease 
of access.

Jeff Schiffman

Professor and Radio Station Manager for WVYC

High-quality, diverse content achieves award-winning results

York College uses Storyblocks as their exclusive stock media provider because of the diversity of content that Storyblocks provides. From audio classes to client projects, staff and students can tap into over two million assets within the Storyblocks library, giving them a plethora of professional media to create their stories and assignments. Schiffman especially appreciates the wide range of high-quality sound effects and music, which exposes his students to a variety of musical genres as they learn to perfect their craft.

Schiffman and his students also love the Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro templates that Storyblocks provides. Both video editing programs are industry standard software that students need 
to master when pursuing careers in the media and video production industry. With pre-made, easy-to-use templates, students can quickly add advanced effects to their projects without starting from scratch or a steep learning curve.

The impact of using Storyblocks is tangible. Schiffman says that both students and faculty have won BEA awards for projects using Storyblocks content, including audio and sound effects. One of his students also used an After Effects template to create a promo for a local business as part of their class. The client, who was so impressed with the quality of the student’s work, ended up using the student’s promo as part of their marketing campaign – a testament to how Storyblocks helps students produce quality work at professional standards.

“If you can’t find what you’re looking for in Storyblocks, you’re not necessarily going to find it somewhere else. If it’s not in Storyblocks, go make it yourself.”

– Jeff Schiffman

Continued value creates a reliable, long-term resource

One class at York College has the students work with clients across a wide range of industries to create video projects, and finding footage is far simpler with access to the Storyblocks library. Schiffman points out that capturing footage of places such as restaurants would be far more complicated and time-intensive for his students if they didn’t have the Storyblocks library as a resource.

He also appreciates how the library continually grows and changes with advancements in the industry and technology, such as adding DaVinci Resolve templates to the Storyblocks 
library as the software grows in popularity among industry professionals.

Storyblocks is pretty valuable for us. I can’t imagine the quality of our work being better if we didn’t have something like this.

Jeff Schiffman

Professor and Radio Station Manager for WVYC

Conclusion

Storyblocks plays an integral part in the education and professional development of students and faculty at York College of Pennsylvania, serving as an invaluable resource for high-quality content that they can use inside and outside the classroom. With a diverse selection of music, footage, and templates to create award-winning projects, students not only enhance their education by using Storyblocks in their daily work, but also better prepare themselves for future roles and careers in video or media production. And to Schiffman, that education and preparation that Storyblocks enables is the greatest reward of all.