College for Journalism Degree

vanderbilt has neither a j-school nor journalism classes.

 

Just pick a decent academic public university with a big-time basketball or football program. You'll learn more on press row/in the press box than you ever will in class.

 

Don't go to J-school. Get a degree in something that interests you from a school with big-time athletics and make damned sure you're at the student daily by spring of your freshman year. By your sophomore year they should know you at the local daily from your experience answering phones on Friday nights or typing in swimming agate for peanuts (better get used to that, too).

I say big-time athletics because if you want to cover sports you need to be in a competitive situation. You need to be in an environment where you're hustling for stories with pros breathing down your neck while negotiating the Kremlin-like SID situation (I know, I know, that's not always the case but it IS the case often enough to be prepared for it). You will NOT learn that in the classroom, only by doing it.

And you can do it at any of the NCAA's Division I institutions (much respect to Plaschke and others who went the NAIA, D-II or D-III route). Good luck.

 

A page and a half and not one mention of the Grady College at Georgia? Where my Dogs at?

 

Well, if you really want the affordable part, there's always JUCOs for two years. Get the generals, and real-life experience. I got to work 20 hours a week at a good daily in town, before heading off to the land of college debt.

 

there's thousands of kids coming out of the mizzou's of the world that can't get a look, too.

 

Michigan terminated its undergraduate journalism program in the mid-70s, because the faculty felt the field of print journalism was becoming a dead end, and the journalism degree itself was of "marginal academic credibility."

 

Michigan seems like it was prophetic in some ways . . . . . .

I'll echo those who say journalism school isn't as important as being on your student daily. This may be an inherent flaw in some J-schools, where the student paper is a course that must be taken, not a place where people can find out if they have what it takes to be a journalist. I have to think a quality kid or two falls through the cracks. Of course, I also have to acknowledge that the J-schools who demand a higher standard in the classroom overall feel that they;re producing better-rounded people. Maybe they're right. My personal experience at a quality (but not upper tier) J-school already mentioned in this thread, where you only had to have a 2.2 GPA to get in and stay in (!) indicates that grades are not an important part of the journalism package.

Still, let's be honest here: the quality schools, in all majors, have a reputation for a reason. Some want to join that club and become part of that reputation, others want to simply gravy train off it and wonder why their piece of paper from cool J-school that Mommy and daddy paid for isn't getting them a job.

As is always said in these threads, everyone is different. I wanted to go to a school with big-time athletics, away from home, with a good soccer team (shaddup!) to cover and carve a niche that way. Others (like a gentleman I used to work with who now is a college professor) may seek a good J-school with a quality football program to cover. Bill Plaschke went to SIU-Edwardsville. Michael Wilbon went to Nortwestern. I don't remember where T.J. Simers went. Wright Thompson and friends went to Missouri.

A million different approaches, none of which guarantee a damn thing. Everyone has to do what's best for themselves, the better to move forward with few regrets.

The only undeniable fact is that wherever you go, you must get involved with campus media, or your only learning will be in th classroom.

 

soccer?

 

Shaddup!

Hey . . . .we all have our passions. And I said to myself, "Petey Pureheart, this is your favorite sport, there are many stories to tell, you can be at the forefront of covering its emergence. This is what you want to establish yourself covering as a professional."

It worked for me. A side benefit is that I didn't get lost in the shuffle of every 19-year-old thinking they're destined to be NBA/NFL/MLB beat writers someday.

And many wait a long time for those opportunities, which never happen.

 

You know, I admire that. I have a good friend who's also a reporter who did the same thing with hockey, and he's living large right now as well.

If only I didn't play such mainstream sports growing up, maybe I wouldn't have taken such a strong liking to them. Then again, I don't know that there are many squash writers...