What if....?

A professor of mine always says that there are tradeoffs to everything. Has the grind and crazy hours and poor pay and etc etc been worth the daily challenges of journalism?

I'm with the folks who say they wish they'd majored in something else and taken j-classes on the side. Looking back, that would have been a more sensible option.

This is a route I am seriously considering myself. Anyone else with an opinion on that?

But this....this is what I like to hear. And hope to be able to say if...and likely, when...I continue the career track I've started.

Keep it up, this is good stuff folks.

 

Solid.

 

I was *this* close to going to law school before I finished college. Even took the LSAT and got a pretty epic score. But at the last minute, I flinched and decided I loved newspapers too much and got a job as a copy editor at a pretty good paper (though making peanuts, less than I made as a burger manager when I was paying my way through college). I regard my journalism degree as the biggest mistake of my life, a five-figure flush-job for someone who didn't grow up with much and thus didn't have a lot of margin for error financially. But then again, I've gotten to do something I love for the better part of a decade now, so I should probably quit my whining and count my blessings.

That said, if I could do it all over again from the beginning, I'd either major in accounting or management information systems. If I could only go back to right before I graduated, I'd probably still choose newspapers and take my lumps.

Either way, I've got a kid on the way now, and that has a way of focusing things. I'm going back to school to get that management information systems degree and spend the rest of my life making 50k+ as a computer geek. I'll love that too.

Trust me. They aren't hiring either and they are bleeding money almost as bad.

 

I know of multiple former co-workers who went into teaching and many more who have that as their main option should they leave the business. The ones who have done it seem to be happy with their decision. I could never do it, though, because I remember what kind of student I was and would never want to deal with such people on a daily basis.

 

I had a friend whose journalism professors kept telling her she should quit wasting time with her masters in English and take a job.

Well, she finished her masters, she's already had one paper close on her and might be having another soon. She's sending out applications this fall to be a community college teacher and stands a good chance at landing a job making almost twice as much as she did now.

English masters degrees always sounded worthless to me. But I never really thought about how many two-year schools they are, and they all needs tons of composition 101 teachers.

 

I was accepted to social work graduate programs out of college, because I wanted to save the world. I deferred one school for a year, figuring by then I'd decide which way to go long-term. By that point "the sports thing," as it's known in my family, was too much fun to give up.

At least I didn't sacrifice particularly well-paying career aspirations. :

I've got an eye on non-profits now, most likely writing and editing, since that's what I know how to do. But I wouldn't mind doing some hands-on work as well. Guess I've still got a bit of world-saver left in me.

 

Medicine or electrical engineering. I was an engineering major before getting into journalism. Once my kids grow up, I'd like to go back and at least take a few more engineering classes.

 

Why go to Africa? You can do that here ... on this board.

 

I.T.
Open my own dive shop/surf shop both in one place.
Software programming.
Restaurant.

 

Drinks all around!

 

fuck yes

 

A lot of Carrabba's are getting shut down ... if that makes you feel any better.