Student with a question

Hey everybody,

I am currently a junior at Hofstra University and I have been writing about high school basketball for a branch website of Rivals.com since September and I have freelanced for other basketball websites in the past. I have also worked as a member of production support with CBS Sports for a few years now. My currently declared major is Television/Video (I would be looking to get into the production end), but I've gotten to love the writing and am thinking of switching my major (I am not too far into the TV course work so I wouldn't be killed credit wise or financially). The journalism program here is for a bachelor of arts in print journalism. My question is, what type of jobs are realistic to get with a bachelors degree? how beneficial in terms of finding jobs would it be to go for a masters after my undergrad career? I also know that plenty of people that work in TV production do not have degrees in television production and a lot of them have degrees in English and other writing-oriented programs, so I figured that I do not need a degree in television to necessarily get a TV job.

All help/opinions/advice is appreciated.

 

"how much beneficial in terms of finding jobs would it be to go for a masters after my undergrad career"?

Umm...very beneficial?

 

If you want to work in newspapers -- and I don't know why any sane person under 25 would -- I would say a bachelor's is all you need. Practical experience is much more important than a bunch of graduate degrees anyway.

 

Unless you intend to work in academia, you don't need a master's in journalism ... and you're not going to make enough money to make it worthwhile to take on the extra loans.

 

I agree with Barsuk, a masters in journalism is absolutely pointless unless you intend to teach. In journalism, experience rules.

As for an undergraduate major, I suggest something else. If you're already finding opportunity to learn in the field, you're eventually going to learn everything there is to know to succeed in journalism. Earn an undergraduate degree in something like business administration, engineering or computer science, and minor in journalism (I do believe classes in ethics and law of mass comm are beneficial).

If I could do it all over again, I would have passed on J-School and gone straight to the university's school of technology.

 

I think a law degree is basically, or should at least, going to become the new masters in journalism. In fact, I think schools should set up something where you can somehow get a journalism concentration with your JD.

That way, you get a professional degree for your money.

Of course, journalism people wouldn't like that because it gives someone a big-money "out," but if I was a law school, I'd think about including journalism in its public-interest work loan forgiveness program.

We need to start thinking creatively about how to keep bright young people in this business.

 

I'd go for computer science with a j-minor.

 

I thought the interesting part was that even teachers aren't encouraging kids to check out local newspaper sites. That's pretty bad.

This just fucking sucks. I'm sure the majority of us centered our entire lives around this career, and now it's being taken from us. Fuck.

 

My impression is that if you're getting a bachelor's in journalism, it doesn't make sense to get a master's in it unless you plan to teach. I don't really think there really isn't much more you're going to learn in a master's program.

I've pondered grad school myself (my B.A. is in English), and even then, former colleagues have told me I'd be wasting my time.

 

Master's would be nice to teach at juco and pick up a few thousand bucks. If I were to do that, I would do it online though.

 

The same is true for newspapers. There are plenty of people who work for newspapers and do not have journalism degrees.

 

you cant get any kind of job with a journalism degree. stick with tv/video... if you are that good of a writer you can parlay that into a diff. job later