Graduate school options

Bingo.

 

as for C, you're kidding yourself if you think you can do a good job as a law student (and subsequently a lawyer) and remain in the business. sure, you can cover a few games a week but that's all.

 

Is there any way you could incorporate a master's in history to the journalism, specifically sports writing, industry? The only thing I can think is getting out of journalism, teaching history and coaching (which I would like), or getting a doctorate in history and teaching some sort of it at a college.

 

Wayne, what do you consider the "big time." You're young IMO, there are plenty of opportunities to make the neccesary connections to move up the ladder. Your nine years into journalism, keep plugging away!

 

Thirty isn't as young as you think. If you have a family, particularly, you have to make some hard choices. "Plugging away" sounds great - when the going gets tough, the tough get going, etc., etc. But you have to make some hard choices about your future at this age, and that includes a very sober look at what you want for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years and beyond, both on the field and off, so to speak.

 

Agreed. While the salary you were making at 25 seemed great, maybe at 30 it hasn't changed all that much; but the bills did. Also, if you're planning to get married or already have a family, I'm sure reevaluating your career is understandable. I just happened to make a positve post, but with obvious holes in it.

 

I would say B, C or E. I agree with Leo (how's that bar studying going?) in that trying to do both would be hard. But going to a slightly lesser law school on scholarship would be all right as long as it is in an area in which you'd like to live.

I have a golf buddy who is a lawyer and is about mid-30s. He went to a very regional law school, but he's at a good firm and is making between 150K and 200K.

MBA would give you more options, but there may be fewer guarantees than law school.

 

Been starting to have these kinds of thoughts myself lately. I'm 28, doing this for as long as I can remember. Recently jumped from mid-sized to metro and, while I still love the job, this ain't exactly the land of milk and honey either. And I can't see where good this whole business goes in the long run.
If I was picking I'd give serious thought to C, not really to keep a hand in the biz, but b/c I would get a free ride and could therefore do the kind of law I want to, not the law that pays off law school. That way I could maybe preserve some of why I got into journalism in the first place -- the freedom to kick ass in the name of making the world a better place -- even if I couldn't do satisfying journalism any more.

 

DAMN, 150-200 K sounds scrumptious.

 

You're right. I am young. I'm probably going to be working for close to another 40 years, unless I can publish the Great American Novel or hit the lottery.
I just feel like I'm doing too much swimming upstream right now, for not enough reward. The guy whose papers I used to help write makes more money than me as an assistant manager at Wal-Mart.
I just can't live on the money I'm making and the promise of at best 3 percent raises a year, especially since marriage (and then spawning) looms on the horizon.
Throw into the mix the penny-wise but pound-foolish policies of the idiots who run newspapers, and I'm starting to wonder if this is an industry that will sustain me until I retire.
Further education gives me the option of teaching, and time to hone my craft and the opportunity to create some of my own luck.
One of my buddies told me to get an MBA, but I honestly have no idea what I'd do with that degree.

 

No one with an advanced degree ever won a Pulitzer Prize.

 

I'm exactly your age and nowhere near as high on the food chain, and believe me, I'm looking at all the options, from law school to PR to ad sales to a tank of helium and a plastic bag over my head. I tell people we're like our parents' elevator operators -- we happened onto our craft in an era where it's become obsolete and/or undesirable in degrees. God knows I'm a depressed and depressing motherfucker, but I've seen nothing to tell me I'm not right.