Can experience make up for a degree?

Get the piece of paper while you can.

Trust me.

e.g. - grad school down the road

 

And if you are already maxed out on student loans, I'm sorry to tell you that you are thoroughly boned on a journalist's salary.

 

If this was a decade ago, I'd tell you that nobody in the journalism field cares if you have a degree and that you could create a pretty damn impressive staff of writers and editors who never finished college.

Now, go back and get your degree.

 

The friend I mentioned is the exception, rather than the rule.

If nothing else, get the degree so that you have it in your pocket for when you inevitably decide to exit journalism.

In this economy, I know friends with J-degrees from very, very good schools who couldn't get a sniff of full-time work.

 

Seriously, COP, if I were you, I would go back and get the Christianity degree -- whatever that entails -- and get a job in the church and write on the side.

I think it would be a lot easier to get a job as a youth minister or assistant pastor or maybe even some recreation job at a big church than get a full-time sports writing job.

 

Get the degree. You'll regret it years later if you don't.

You'll get tired of explaining to people - socially and professionally - that you're only a few credits short.

 

All student papers are award-winning, and if you should have seen your situation coming and planned for that.

There are plenty of weeklies and small dailies to get your start at. Apply for everything you see, including news, and prepare to move to Hungry Horse if this is really what you want to do with your life. Remember, JournalismJobs.com is one of many job boards.

If you're not willing to move to the worst city in America to take a sports writing job, then your heart really isn't in it

 

The degree would come in handy if (and perhaps when) your newspaper lays you off for budgetary reasons, and you're looking for a new job in a different field.

Amazingly, many employers outside the newspaper industry don't care how well an individual put together the agate page or stayed on top of high school sports developments. But they care about that piece of paper.

 

I worked as a sports reporter (without a degree) for 12 years before losing my job last year due to the downturn in the industry. The paper where I worked has made at least four rounds of staff cuts over the past three years.

Though I was able to work as a sports reporter with no degree, I wholeheartedly agree with Piotr's assessment. If you want to get a job outside of the journalism industry, the degree will come in handy.

I finished my B.A. in May and hope it leads to a new (PR, marketing, communications) career at some point soon. Prior to losing the paper gig, I took a class here and there to inch closer to finishing the degree.

 

Personally, I've always viewed it as the degree helps you get teh foot in the door for the first job; your work and networking is what lands you the next gig.
COP, if you dropped the second major, would you have enough credits to graduate and get a degree? I graduated as a double major (Advertising and Journalism) but have never used the former. However, the credits from those classes allowed me to graduate a semester early to take my first job.

 

Get the degree.

 

I would consider you along with everyone else based on your newspaper experience, but I would say go back and finish up those three credits within the next school year...silly to be that close and without the diploma and for some out there it will mean more, especially if you jump to another job field.