NPR asks, "What's The Point Of Journalism School, Anyway?"

I couldn't have said it better Cranberry.

 

In my day job, I read an article in Variety in which the NYU Film School is offering a combined program with the business school for an MFA/MBA joint degree. This is so filmmakers have enough financial knowledge to be the entrepreneurs they have to be to make films. Journalism schools should look into such a program, as the only ventures one sees growing in this field will be start-ups.

 

Not sure I agree. I remember that period from 1997-2001 where I was actually turning down freelance work because it was coming in so quickly. Hell, I made more than $20K in freelance one year. My last year in journalism, in a much, much higher-profile job, I might have made a couple grand.

 

I'm willing to play baseball for a living for free, but I can't hit a curveball. There's a huge difference between willing and able.

 

Brings to mind Michael Lewis's classic "J-School ate my brain" from 1993.

http://www.tnr.com/article/j-school-confidential

 

I asked myself the same question 10 years ago when I was in college. I got my BA in English with creative writing. Not sure if it was any better than journalism, but at least now I have options. There's only so much you can do with a journalism degree.

 

What could you possibly do with a BA in English with creative writing that you can't do with a journalism degree?

 

Teach, go to law school, write copy for engineering web sites, do PR for NASCAR. I lost my journalism job, but was able to keep working as a sub teacher and work on my credential because I had an English degree. I don't how appealing I would be as a sub teacher with a journalism degree.

 

It's worked just fine for me. As long as I'm certified to teach, they don't care what my degree is in.

 

I'm glad you've found your degree flexible, but an English degree alone doesn't qualify you for most of those jobs any more than a Journalism degree does, especially going to law school, writing copy for an engineering web site or doing PR for NASCAR.

I've always thought journalism was a very versatile degree as it combines communications, writing (creatively and efficiently) and editing.

 

Perhaps. It seems to me teachers are more impressed with my English degree than my years of working for newspapers. I get a number of repeat assignments from high school English teachers. Only a handful of them know or even care that I still work as a freelancer.

 

The idea that a journalism degree is a dead end is ridiculous. I can count, literally, two dozen people I personally know who left newspapers in just the last few years to work in public relations, most often as spokesperson or PIO for hospitals, prison systems, education departments, state governments, political candidates, police departments, universities, private high schools, major corporations, veteran affairs administration, alumni magazines, retirement communities, etc. And that's just from looking at the first 100 people in my Facebook friends. All were journalism school graduates. I also went to journalism school with people who are now: writing screenplays in Hollywood, working in the Foreign Service, teaching high school, own their own business, work for the Bureau of Land Management, working as a lawyer, teaching in college.

Sure, you don't NEED journalism school to be a journalist. But journalism school is not a dead end. It's actually a pretty versatile undergraduate degree where you learn critical thought and learn how to write. Yes, you can probably get a higher paying job by majoring in computer science or economics, but if you're truly interested in journalism, there is nothing wrong with a double major. People who piss on j-schools the most typically didn't have a very good j-school experience. Journalism school is what you make of it. Can you be really good at this without going to j-school? Absolutely. But can immersing yourself in the study of reading and discussing journalism help if you're also practicing it on a daily basis help? Absolutely. I think if you're attitude is "Journalism school didn't teach me shit" then you should have picked a different journalism school.