Emory closing journalism school

They should've announced it on Twitter.

 

Since the sticker price at Emory is $55,000 a year and a graduate of the journalism program would be lucky to earn half that, I am on board with this decision. Schools need for students (and their parents) to think about the path to paying all that debt.

And if someone truly wants to get into journalism, an English degree with four years of work at the school paper would certainly be a good start.

 

I agree regarding the cost, but should Northwestern close its journalism school, then? Should USC?

 

Maybe.
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Emory groups itself with the Ivies, Duke and I guess Northwestern. Do those other schools have J-programs?

 

Journalism is a noble pursuit. A BA in journalism is a futile pursuit. The best journalists I know majored in anything but journalism.

 

Who are these best journalists you know?

I'm not defending journalism school, which mostly was a waste of time. But most of the journalists I know, good or bad, majored in journalism.

 

Journalism school forced me to take a lot of j-ethics and j-history classes that people with a serious interest in reporting and the media's role in society should study at some point. I'm not sure I would have otherwise taken them as electives or bothered to pursue them in my own time, though there are certainly people who do.

That's my only defense of journalism as a major, apart from making access to good internships a bit easier. I do feel like I learned a lot of things that were both valuable and practical. That said, if I had it to do all over again I would not have gone through j-school. Of course, I also no longer work in journalism.

I would say it might be better as an English or Communications (maybe even Public Policy) specialty concentration than a separate degree, at this point.

 

If you're trying to say there's more to journalism than just writing well, then I beg to differ, sir.

 

As an Emory Journalism Program graduate ... I'll chime in here:

This is the second time in 60 years Emory has closed the j-program, basically saying that as a pre-professional program, it isn't a fit at a liberal arts university. [Though Emory also has an undergraduate business school and stellar pre-med program]. Emory's interdisciplinary journalism program was one of the main reasons I chose Emory in the late 90s. I wanted a journalism education but I wanted to major in political science, and I loved that there I could do both.

Journalism degrees were/are only available as a co-major or a minor. I earned a co-major mostly through credits earned in an amazing journalism summer abroad program and an internship. That internship, at the Palm Beach Post, led directly to my first job after graduation.

There are currently four Emory alums covering the NFL for major papers (three of us earned journalism degrees, another was an English major who worked at the campus paper); other grads are working at the Wall Street Journal, Politico, The New York Times, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, CNN, ESPN, NBC ... and those are just the ones from my era that I can think of off the top of my head. Emory has loved to brag about these accomplishments (we were featured in the alumni magazine not long ago) but now the message is that the college should not be preparing us to actually get jobs and start careers? That critical-thinking and writing skills aren't important lessons for any number of fields?

It's all just frustrating and terribly disappointing.

 

It's nice that their alumni are working for those major outlets, but how long did it take them to get there, and how many years did they slave away making $25K in Podunk to make it to the big time?

Not to mention those who end up not making the big time and end up stuck at a medium size paper making $35K before they end up getting laid off. And they do this for a price of $55K a year.

It's not worth the amount of debt for a student to go into the program. You mentioned business school and pre-med. Grads can make considerably more money in those fields, compared to journalism.

If Emory wanted to make it worthwhile for their journalism students, they should cut the price to attend by about 75 percent. At least.

 

My guess: Not that many.

Seems like the profession, for a while, has been one where you're either in Capital City the day you graduate or you never get there. Or, at the least, you had an internship in Capital City that you'll be able to cash in when Capital City has an opening. I don't think the ladder as we think of it is too prevalant. Obviously, there are exceptions.