J-School value ...
I reported to you earlier that a majority of my journalism friends said they didn’t go to journalism school. The official tally in my very unscientific survey: Among the 15, 5 went to journalism school; 9 did not; and 2 were kind of split (one minored in journalism, the other earned a mass comm. degree). Should a would-be journalist go to J-School or not? I guess you can go either way. Paul Steiger at The Wall Street Journal explained:
“I've concluded from my own experience and that of others I've encountered over the years with similar backgrounds that journalism school, while certainly a help, isn't necessary to a career in journalism. A broad education experience—
in or out of journalism school—that includes a lot of reading and writing is the most important foundation.”
Though in the minority, each of the J-School graduates recalled an important lesson from their college days.
Accuracy was the holy grail for Gina Lubrano, the Readers Representative at the San Diego Union-Tribune (my old paper). “I went to San Jose State, which has an EXCELLENT journalism department. Anyway, accuracy was emphasized every single day. At the beginning of the Spartan Daily class every day (we produced the daily paper), our advisers would go over the good and the bad in the paper. Errors were assigned a red X on a chart that was kept in the office. At the end of the year, the advisers treated us to Red X cupcakes. That was the only time anyone in the class wanted a Red X. It really was a Scarlet Letter.”
Marlene Bagley, a staff editor on the Styles Desk at The New York Times, recalled that ethics was stressed in each of her journalism classes. “(The) test came up rather quickly in the first year of my first reporting
job. I wrote a feature on a small flower and gift shop (I don't remember why, but I think there was a reason!!!), and a day after it appeared in the paper, the shop's owner sent the most beautiful gift basket full of fruit, candy, flowers, etc. Of course, I couldn't accept it, which I explained to the shop owner who seemed to both understand and appreciate my explanation. (My co-workers and I made the shop owner particularly happy, by the way, when we decided to buy the basket.)
Mae Cheng, an assistant city editor at Newsday (and president of Unity: Journalists of Color) remembers a very practical lesson: “The most important mental barrier I had to get over was the idea of getting clips, clips and more clips. By doing, I got better. But also, unlike other professions that look at your GPA, you are really judged by your work in newspapers.”
--Posted by Jon, the rookie professor, preparing for new faculty orientation
Yikes! Are journalism schools necessary?
Now that I’m hurtling towards the start of classes, I’ve started to think about what journalism students need to know. So I emailed more than a dozen friends—successful newspaper and TV journalists around the country—with this question: What was the most important thing you learned in journalism school? I got a wide variety of responses—learning about the value of accuracy and ethics, for example. (I’ll post more on this, later.)
But the most startling revelation for me was that a MAJORITY of those I contacted did NOT go to journalism school. More typically, they studied something else—like history, English or science—and caught the “journalism bug” after working on the campus newspaper and then hit the streets. Paul Steiger, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, explains:
“I worked on the Yale Daily News student newspaper in college and was able to wangle a summer job (they didn't use the word "internship" then) as a reporter at the Trenton (NJ) Times. Clips from there and from some sporadic magazine writing landed me an entry-level reporting job at the Wall Street Journal. The Journal gave me a heavy dose of on-the-job training.”
Stan Honda, a photographer for Agence France-Presse, offered a similar experience: “I didn't go to journalism school because that's not what I started out to do. Wanted to go into some sort of science and thought I would do some work for the Triton Times (later the Guardian) at the University of California, San Diego. Ended up having too much fun at the paper and decided this would be interesting work.”
In an email posted from Delhi, Pamela Constable, a high-flying foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, put it this way:
“I did not go to journalism school because I thought it was more important to get started in the real world, and I never looked back.”
Maybe I should have asked this question BEFORE selling my house in New Jersey? More on this later.
--Posted by Jon, the rookie professor, house-hunting in California
Truth or Dare
"I always knew I'd teach when I got too old and ugly to be on TV," is how Amy Atkins joked about her decision to go into teaching to the Communicator, the magazine of the Radio-Television News Directors Association.
Looking for inspiration, I checked out Mike Cavender's article, "From Classroom to Newsroom," in the February issue. True, I did get some rah-rahs for journalists-who-would-be-professors. Like the thrill ex-newsjocks get from working with people who can still be molded and shaped. But Cavender expounds on many of the pitfalls:
--The rat race to achieve tenure track.
--Pay so low that he urges you to think about a second job.
--Open hostility between the haves -- those who flaunt PhDs or master's degrees -- and the have-nots -- those who enter academia via the newsroom.
We'll see.
--Posted by Jon, the rookie professor, about to sell my house.
Anticipation
Here's something to think about: Money magazine ranks "College Professor" as No. 2 in its list of 50 Best Jobs in the U.S. Kind of hard to believe, no?
Why? The main reason is the "professors have near total flexibility in their schedules" and "creative thinking is the coin of the realm."
On the downside: "The tick-tick-tick of the tenure clock" and "grading papers." Plus low starting pay.
The job gets a "B" grade for stress; "A" for flexibility; "A" for creativity and "C" for ease of entry (i.e., most jobs require a Master's, a professional degree or a Ph.D.)
Money stresses that college enrollments are rising, thus demand for professors will grow.
What's No. 1 you ask? Software Engineer, probably because of high projected job growth over the next decade.
You choose: College Professor or Software Engineer!
See for yourself:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/--posted by Jon, the rookie professor, still in New York
Care Package
As a goodbye gift, my New York colleagues have given me a boxful of gifts to prepare me for campus life. They called it an "academic survival kit" or "prof in-a-box." It includes:
--Sunglasses and sunscreen for outdoor seminars on unbearably beautiful California days.
--The Worst Case Scenario cardgame.
--A School Bell to bring class to order.
--A Little Extra Cash (play money) to supplement that generous professorial salary.
--Stickers for brown-nosing students.
--A Red Medicine Bundle to keep the good spirits in the classroom.
I wonder which one of these I'll need first? I've got six bucks left on my NY subway pass.
--posted by Jon, the rookie professor, still in New York
Trepidation
I'm a recovering journalist who's going to become an instant college professor. In a matter of weeks, I have to sell my house on the East Coast, pack my things, fly across country with my wife and an elderly cat, and start teaching journalism at San Francisco State University. Believe me, I'm in a rush.
I've had some teaching experience more than a decade ago, so this is not totally new to me. (I can explain more about later. ) This time, however, it's a full-fledged professional conversion.
I'm excited. A recent national magazine reported that "college professor" rates as the No. 2 top job in the nation. But I'm also a tad scared. How would you feel? Can we talk? More, later.
--Posted by Jon, the rookie professor, in New York
