Advice on J-Schools/Mass Comm Schools: Missouri, Marquette, Fordham

Maybe I was thinking of Yeshiva University? That's in Manhattan, right?

 

Fordahm - Located in the Bronx, so its close to Manhattan and the rest of NYC, NJ, and Connecticut. Lots of opportunities for work/internships in the area. If he should decide to go into radio and away from journalism, Fordham's radio station is arguably the best in NYC - www.wfuv.org.

Marquette - Don't know much about it except that a former co-worker went there, loved the experience and came out with a great education.

Missouri - can't comment on except that I've heard that the j-school has a great reputation.

 

Apparently, many shops put extra emphasis on people who graduate from the big name J-schools or wrote for the stud college rags. I can't speak to that mentality, but when I was hiring, I paid less attention to that than I did to other factors of employability.

The one person I hired came from a school without a big reputation for journalism. In fact, it's journalism program was part of the mass communications department. He was the best writer who applied and he was the best fit as far as personality was concerned.

To me, those factors were more important than reputation of a J-school. Then again, it could be because I never went to J-school.

 

forever - What people don't realize is that oftentimes, the reason people from those schools get hired is because they ARE the best-trained writers and reporters. Generally speaking.

 

Milwaukee is a great city, but Marquette isn't in the best neighborhood. UW-Milwaukee is on the east side and much nicer as opposed to Marquette's downtown campus. But UWM's Mass Communications department and its programs aren't as well known as Marquette's Journalism School. But UWM is still a stellar institution of finer learning.

UW-Madison has a decent journalism program, too, and the city has won tons of awards for being a great place to live.

 

What I learned at Mizzou... the real-world work you do there for the Missourian (presuming newspaper sequence, of course) is a fantastic learning experience. And it's fun, if you can cope with the fact that your "job" is really a 3-hour class that you're paying out the nose for.

The classroom work, with very, very rare exceptions, is complete crapola. And if you're out there (or still there) Anna Romero and Bonnie Brennan, I'm talking about you. And not as the rare exceptions.

 

Let me mention, too, that a slew of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editors and reporters (in sports) graduated from UW-Milwaukee.

 

I've always said that was the best thing about going there. My first gig out of college, I was one of four or five Mizzou guys in the news room - and that was in S.C. In my second gig, I was one of another four or five (again, in S.C.).
There are a ton of opportunities to work during school, so you will also build up your own connections.

That said, I used to cross paths with a guy from Fordham and he absolutely loved it. As someone else said, he understood that he was in the middle of the media universe. By the time he graduated, he had clips in from the NY Post and Daily News, not to mention a million papers who didn't want to send their people to New York for games.

Obviously, New York and Columbia, Mo., are going to be slightly different. To each his own.

 

When I look back at it, I maybe should have tried to get into a top-tier journalism program. I wouldn't change the experience that I got at my school and the professors that I had for anything. That being said, to the OP, your nephew has a great understanding on his future.

 

Great points and post, Mayfly. I agree.

 

Mayfly, I'm like you. Then I remember I met my wife in J-School. And my best man. And the friend I get together with at least once a week. And the people I play fantasy football with every year and go to the local NASCAR race with every summer. And I can't imagine my life any other way. But I'll certainly have some ideas about this stuff when my kids are college age.

 

It sounds like you've never been there. Not every part of the Bronx looks like the South Bronx. Fordham is on Rose Hill, next to the Bronx Zoo. It's a beautiful campus. Looks like many other East Coast Catholic schools, like Villanova.

One Fordham alumnus is the illustrious baseball writer Jack Curry, of the New York Times. He did pretty well for himself. Of those three schools, in fact, I'd pick Fordham.