Getting a sports reporter job out of college without Journalism degree

A masters program might be different because you don't have the looming specter of U.S. News & World Report's rankings hovering over admissions decisions.

 

For the record I had a bad GPA in college. It wasn't because I was "hanging out" in the newsroom. Rather I was always out covering games. In my opinion that is the best route to go. Do I wish I would have gotten a bit better than my 2.4? Sure but I spent 50-60 hours a week covering games for the newspaper, announcing games on the radio and do video work for the television station. Can't tell you how many times my profs told me that they wish I would dedicate myself to the classroom like I do covering games.

 

Fair point.

 

Yea, the folks in my old college office didn't just hang out in terms of wasting time. It was just the fact we valued work so much and wanted to put out the best product possible on a daily basis. It's not a lack of caring about school work, it was just caring more about journalism.

Now, we did have academic standards for working at the paper (I think minimum GPA was like 2.4 for a staffer and 2.7 for an editor, which isn't very hard at all), but for most people it wasn't a focus.

Plus, you gain so much more knowledge in the field than you do in class. I went to nearly every J-school class, but after taking media and society and my reporting 201 courses, I didn't really learn much until my final two semesters of school when I wanted to focus on feature writing courses because we had a great professor who was a whiz at them. Well, nothing I hadn't already picked up from experience, that is.

 

I asked for jobs, not schools. I'm well aware graduate schools want to see you're GPAs.

But this has driven me to check my GPA. I had forgotten exactly what it was.

 

Sure they did.

 

My route too, cubbie, and I wouldn't have done it any other way.

 

Don't fret too much about the degree thing, but yes, get yourself an internship or perhaps some steady freelance work at a small daily/weekly in the area.

It's not worth staying in school and running up loans, etc. that you'll struggle paying off in this profession.

My degrees are in English and History, and I've been an SE for 15 years now. But get active in a newspaper right away...doesn't really matter what the job is. You'll learn more in that spot than any classroom anyway.

 

The OP should get into grant writing and give up the dream of being sportswriter, especially since no effort was made to act on that dream for the first three years of college.

 

Indeed they did. Well, guess I can't speak for the entertainment writers, but news, sports and enterprise.

 

Same here, and with good reason. I learned a lot more actually doing the job than I did from my profs. If it meant skipping class because it would mean I got to cover something I hadn't covered before, I would. I wanted that experience.
There were plenty of people doing better work than me in class and my profs always wondered why. It was simple. They were poring over everything they did for a week or two, making sure every detail was perfect. In the time they did that I was covering a dozen games and pounding out feature story after feature story. In the end I wouldn't take any of those straight A students in a newsroom. In the real world you don't have two weeks to fine tune everything, and those profs never quite got that.

 

Great topic and one close to my heart. I'm a firm believer that you can either do this for a living or you can't. Professional success has little to do with your GPA or your major and everything to do with whether you can write.
Wasted three years in college fucking ard. Didnt start at the school daily until fall of my senior year PartA (graduated in 4.5). Waiting that long is the second biggest regret of my collegiate career the biggest is screwing around academically. My parents picked up the tab and I rewarded them with a string of 2.3-2.5 semesters because I thought my life didn't depend on what I got in Sociology. It didn't but thats no excuse for throwing away thousands of their hard earned dollars.
All that being said, great grades don't mean you're cut out to do this for a living just like bad ones don't mean youve got no chance.
Employers want to know if you can do the job, period. They're going to skim your resume and take their time on your clip file. So kid, get to work. There's still plenty of time to get experience before you graduate. Consider it a test to see if you're truly dedicated or if this just looks fun because you like watching PTI.