Getting a sports reporter job out of college without Journalism degree

A note to all students who may be reading this thread: Don't do this. Get your ass to class. You're paying for it, make the most of it. Even if you're lucky enough to not be paying for it, you should respect yourself and your professors enough to show up. Get that GPA up, because as someone mentioned, you may want it later.

There is plenty of time to hang out in the campus newsroom. Classes are only about an hour long.

And as a hiring employer, I don't accept "but I worked on the campus paper" as an excuse for a low GPA.

 

Plus, it's not that difficult to get at least a 3.0. You can still get into grad schools with that.

 

Honestly, you have no chance. None.

I don't even like the odds for the folks with several internships AND college newspaper experience.

I work at a 25k daily. We haven't had a sports writer opening in more than five years. The newspaper in the county over hasn't had a sports writer opening in four years. People get these jobs and they cling to them, even in the best of times. And these clearly are not the best of times.

My suggestion would be to start a blog about a sport/team you love, draw a huge following and hope somebody takes notice. And, yes, for goodness sakes, get professional experience. It matters more than the degree. And consider another field. I wish I would have.

Best of luck.

 

The students with bad grades are often doing just that, "Hanging out" in the newsroom. They'd find a way to get low (but passing) grades no matter what they were doing with their time.

 

You can get into grad schools, but could you get into a good one? 3.0 is the new 2.0 in this era. Let's take law schools. With a 3.0, if you have any dreams of working at a corporate law firm some day making good money, you better get about a 172 on your LSAT, which is, I think, the 99th percentile. I'm not sure any medical school in America would even look at you, regardless of MCAT score.

 

I don't think that's necessarily the case. It was my experience, as well as the experience of many others I've talked to through the years, that J-majors, again, are almost actively discouraged from being academic standouts. I think it's part of the anti-establishment creed.

 

This was not my observation in J-school or in working with j-school grads at all, but clearly mileage varies. The business attracts high-achieving nerd personalities. It also attracts other kinds and the time spent at a college daily definitely takes away from the time spent on grades, but I knew plenty of Honors College kids and Deans Listers who busted their asses at my college paper and radio station.

I did, of course, also know the guys who lived at the college paper and dedicated their lives to it rather than their classes, but saying everyone was them is just as broad a brush as saying everyone was a nerd.

 

Who said that?

 

If you read this far down the thread, OSU-about-to-be-graduate, I sent you a PM with some info.

 

It's amazing that these threads seem pop up at the start of the school year where the OP is a senior who always wanted to be sportswriter, but changed their major several times and doesn't have any clips.

 

To be fair, my experience was at a school that the high achievers didn't usually end up at to begin with.

 

I got into a great Master's program with a 2.4 GPA. It did help I could write one heck of a personal statement... explaining my poor GPA.