Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - College Major -> Job conversion

Rodney · 08-07-2004, 06:07 AM

Woiw, the field has got a little more hoity-toity since I got my degree in Journalism 25 years ago. At my school, the three areas of study under the Journalism program were PR, reporting and editing, and radio/TV production news.

I can tell you that a good journalism/reporting and editing program is all about gathering and evaluating information until you get a complete picture of a subject, then spitting it back out in an appropriate, unambiguous, easy-to-read form. Under pressure. After college, I never went into newspaper work, but I found a lot of use for those skills over the years. I did public information for government job training programs. I worked in the advertising department of an insurance company worked on their weekly employee newspaper and other company-to-employee communications. I went into high tech and spent 20 years writing and researching technical manuals, white papers, online help, corporate policies and procedures, and so on. All on a journalism degree. Of my fellow grads who did go to work for newspapers, many have moved on to PR by now, and a lot of those are working for themselves. So it's a pretty flexible degree/skill set.

As for working on TV, frankly a combination of basic journalism skills with radio or TV hosting/production experience would be best. In my mind, unless your school's communcation program combines radio/TV production with journalism skills, it's suspect. The best programs involve working on campus-based radio- or TV- programs on a daily basis for at least a couple of semesters, plus summer internships. A lot of my old department's radio/TV journalism grads went on to long careers in the business. I hear a couple of them every day on the radio.

You need to look into more what these areas of study at your university actually teach. The advantage of a journalism-related degree (as opposed to, say, anthropology or political science) is that it teaches actual, marketable skill sets. It's not just about learning what's in the books, it's about demonstrating abilities. The more practice that is required as part of the program -- through projects, internships, or work in student media -- the better.

08-07-2004, 06:07 AM	#6 (permalink)
Rodney Observant Ruminant Location: Rich Wannabe Hippie Town	Woiw, the field has got a little more hoity-toity since I got my degree in Journalism 25 years ago. At my school, the three areas of study under the Journalism program were PR, reporting and editing, and radio/TV production news. I can tell you that a good journalism/reporting and editing program is all about gathering and evaluating information until you get a complete picture of a subject, then spitting it back out in an appropriate, unambiguous, easy-to-read form. Under pressure. After college, I never went into newspaper work, but I found a lot of use for those skills over the years. I did public information for government job training programs. I worked in the advertising department of an insurance company worked on their weekly employee newspaper and other company-to-employee communications. I went into high tech and spent 20 years writing and researching technical manuals, white papers, online help, corporate policies and procedures, and so on. All on a journalism degree. Of my fellow grads who did go to work for newspapers, many have moved on to PR by now, and a lot of those are working for themselves. So it's a pretty flexible degree/skill set. As for working on TV, frankly a combination of basic journalism skills with radio or TV hosting/production experience would be best. In my mind, unless your school's communcation program combines radio/TV production with journalism skills, it's suspect. The best programs involve working on campus-based radio- or TV- programs on a daily basis for at least a couple of semesters, plus summer internships. A lot of my old department's radio/TV journalism grads went on to long careers in the business. I hear a couple of them every day on the radio. You need to look into more what these areas of study at your university actually teach. The advantage of a journalism-related degree (as opposed to, say, anthropology or political science) is that it teaches actual, marketable skill sets. It's not just about learning what's in the books, it's about demonstrating abilities. The more practice that is required as part of the program -- through projects, internships, or work in student media -- the better.