Experience points earned?

I will be graduating in August and if my internship doesn't want to keep me on *crosses fingers* in a few months - I'll be looking for a job like so many others.

My question as a noob is about experience.
I was sports editor for my college paper (both JuCo and University level).
I did an internship with a 80k paper.

Do any of these count as "experience" ?

 

Yes.

Do you have a lot of clips?

 

Tons! I have kept all my work. (100% are in hard copy... maybe 75% are in electrical format.)
From front page features to covering games to pre-season outlooks.

 

Pick your favorite two stories of each. Photocopy them and put them in a file for future reference. Maybe scan them into your computer if you want to ever e-mail out your packet. Then write a kickass cover letter, including a gripping opening anecdote, and you're in.

 

The truth? The internship and the college paper experience probably outweigh the degree itself. Especially if those jobs exposed you to practical deadlines, maybe some Quark or In-Design (in a practical, not classroom setting), etc.

Was your college paper a daily?

 

Sadly, it was a weekly. But as Sports Editor - we did everything. Assigned the stories. (I wrote my editorial), gathered up pictures, and did the lay-out with In-Design. Never touched Quark before...

Two semesters of that - and I found my self checking for gray hair at the age of 22.

 

You wrote your own editorials? Eek.

 

This isn't a videogame.

Just kidding. It sounds like you've done well for yourself. But (from personal experience) the job hunt is tough right now. Best of luck to you with your current shop and if that doesn't work, in the job market.

 

Yeah, if I were hiring, I'd look for clips over education.

Got a B.A.? Fine. Got a 4.0 at Missouri's J-school? Cool.

Got three clips that immediately grab my attention and don't let go? When do you want to schedule your interview?

 

I take that back... my column... I had a side-bar column. I just voiced my predictions on the NFL playoffs, the huge NBA trades (Gasol, Kidd, Shaq, etc...).

 

Hey, don't laugh. I remember writing columns at my college weekly on the Quark page (or whatever layout program we were using back in 1989 or so), literally writing to fill a hole. No more and no less. I'd often wait for all the other copy to be in and those pages pretty much done, then write a column to fill whatever was left — so long as it was roughly column length. I mean I never resorted to a four-inch filler column and I never had to write a 42-inch book to fill space. I'd write it, print it and the editor (or if some other sports writer happened to be there) would proof it on the document.

But funny story, I knew somebody who did write the novel-to-fill-space column on the editorial page. One columnist quit (this is a college paper now, these things happen), something else fell through, he wanted local copy and not something ripped off the U. wire, so he went off — about a 50-inch manifesto covering everything from idiot kids who hang out at the McDonald's in front of the school's main gate (they'd cruise, hang out at Mickey's in front of the college, go cruise again, come back, over and over...), to accreditation problems with the business department, to the fact that you couldn't walk on the grass in the quad and the sidewalks were under construction (Are we supposed to levitate?).
And suddenly, when he got to the bottom of the news hole, he ran out of opinions. Amazing how it worked.

 

DON'T SUBMIT THOSE! That was always my pet peeve with college kids applying for jobs. I don't care what you think about those "big trades". I'm only interested in "local" columns with which you might be able to provide some insight. What are you possibly going to tell me about the Shaq to Miami trade that an established NBA beat writer hasn't already?

Stick with your best features and enterprise work and you'll be better off in my opinion.