Mizzou question ...

Lorax, when I was in school, I seem to also remember hearing something about the Missourian losing 7 figures a year (not necessarily a bad thing for the reputation of the school, I guess).
Methinks that was tightened up a bit.

 

The real-world work at the Missourian still stands as the best editing I've received in my career, and I graduated in '01. I got to sit there while an editor ripped holes in every piece. Kinda stressful, but you improve awful damn quick.

The classroom work, for the most part, was complete and utter shit. Comm law was a great class, but other than that, it sucked. Hard. Easy, and none of it applied to my experience in the business.

 

Was Spencer still doing Comm Law? One of the few college classes I often refer to in my job.

 

I would pretty much agree with this assessment. And when I covered hoops for the Mo'ian, we went everywhere but Syracuse and Anaheim ... on 10 cents a mile ...

 

I'll second doubledown's sentiments about the Missourian editing, and the classwork. I graduated a few years ago and I hardly remember anything about the classes themselves. I learned some from them, but practically zilch compared to what I did writing and reporting nearly every day and night, for the Missourian and Vox magazine. I learned tons there and had a lot of people looking out for me, people who allowed me to take a lot of risks with my writing.

I think the experience of writing and reporting while at any college depends on who's editing you and who's taken an interest in helping you, who's looking out for you, encouraging you, and how passionate you are about what you're doing. But you can go anywhere and do good work, and have the opportunity to do good work--it doesn't have to be there, or anywhere big for that matter, either.

 

I had a similar experience at my community college newspaper. I had a Type A personality advisor who ripped me a new asshole whenever my early stories weren't up to snuff. By the time I left that paper for good about four years later, I could write a story to an exact inch count.

 

Nerd.

I would guess the Missourian's travel budget is taken largely by the salaries they have to pay the adult editors there. Most "student" newspapers don't have a bunch of $25,000-35,000 salaries on the staff.

 

I believe Sandy (or maybe Sandra) Davidson taught the class when I was there. It could be a tedious topic, but she made that hour fly by. Only class I was ever in where the prof got an ovation after her last lecture.

 

So did y'all say, "Bye Sandy!"

 

That's who I had for Comm Law, and she was awesome.

 

Ah well, another part of my youth, apparently long gone.

 

I don't think the GPA "requirement" is set in stone. It's just meant as a guideline.