Aspiring writer looking for major and transfer advice

College Search & Selection
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<p>Hello everyone, I just joined the forum and am hoping to get some help deciding where I will transfer to.</p>

<p>As of right now I am taking my last year at community college and am hoping to transfer to a university afterward and I'm not quite sure where I want to go. I want to be a writer first and foremost, but have been disincouraged from majoring in creative writing because it's pretty deadend. I mostly agree with this because I don't think any writer was ever successful because they majored in creative writing at college, whereas almost all successful writers have a background in news reporting, which is something I'd also be interested in doing, though again my main dream is to write books. That is why I think I'm going to major in journalism, but if anyone has any other suggestions based off my goals and college options.</p>

<p>The other and main issue I'm having is deciding where I will go to for university. As I said, I am finishing my second year in community college, and I am also an Illinois native. I have so far decided on three colleges that interest me: University of Illinois-Urbana, Northwestern, and Mizzou.</p>

<p>UoI - This has always been a college I have been interested in, in part due to it being the best college in my state and one of the best in the country. This was a clear choice for me before I changed my major from psychology, which I'm still thinking of minoring in, and now that I'm thinking creative writing or journalism (or another major if someone recommends it) I have heard that UoI has a really good creative writing program and is generally a good school for aspiring writers, while I don't know much about its journalism course. I should also mention I have only done one year of a foreign language, not two, so I'm not sure if I can get in even as a transfer student.</p>

<p>Northwestern - From what I have heard this college has a really good writing and journalism program, though other than that I don't know much about it. I have also heard that the tuition is much bigger than UoI and Mizzou, so if someone can confirm or unconfirmed that I'd really appreciate that.</p>

<p>Mizzou - Obviously widely known as the best journalism school in the country, this seems like a pretty clear choice for anyone taking the subject. I also never really had the best grades in high school, my GPA being a 2.5 or 2.6, so I think this might be the better fitting option, but I'm not sure how much GPA still matters at all these schools as a transfer student. The thing that's giving me doubts about mizzou though is that it's the best for plain journalists, but I haven't heard anything about a journalist-writer. I believe it has a good creative writing program, but I'm not sure how it compares to other options. So basically what I'm wondering here is if it is a good idea to pursue journalism here even though my main goal is to be a writer, though journalism does interest me. This is also the only out of state school I listed.</p>

<p>I have also heard that Wesleyan and Syracuse are good schools for someone with my goals, but I don't know much about either and I'm not sure if I really envision myself going to a private school and that far out of state.</p>

<p>I figure I will also have to visit for myself and weigh in if I really like the places and want to live there or not, but right now I just want to figure out where I'd want to go for the reasons I've listed. Big thanks to anyone who has read my entire post and decided to help me. If you have any recommendations for a major or school I have listed or not listen and can explain the whys and why nots, I'd be very grateful for your help.</p>

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<p>How much can your family afford? What’s your CC GPA?</p>

3

<p>My CC GPA is about 2.8 or 2.9. But I still have time to raise that, and for the sake of finding the best college for my goals lets say money isn’t an issue right now. I’d be fine taking out the loans I’d have to take out.</p>

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<p>You need to do more work before settling on schools. </p>

<p>Get the Fiske Guide. It will tell you that Northwestern is a very unlikely school for you. Learn to use the SuperMatch feature of this website to find a couple dozen more schools. it’s a good tool for showing you your opportunities based on your GPAs. </p>

<p>Once you come up with a list of journalism schools in the midwest that offer good creative writing for students with your stats, you need to talk to the schools to see if they offer financial support to transfer students. Some do, most don’t. You can also search College Confidential for info on transfer schools and transfers and financial aid. You can only borrow around $7K each of your last two years. Money is always the issue for most Americans.</p>

5

<p>Check out Knox College and Columbia College Chicago. What kind of books do you want to author? Fiction, creative non-fiction, non-fiction? Do you have a subject? What is your plan for income post-BA? </p>

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<p>jkeil911 can you tell me why it’s unlikely given that I probably won’t get that book for awhile even if I ordered it?</p>

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<p>^ Look up the Common Data Set for NU. It’s similar to the Ivies for grades and stats.</p>

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<p>yeah, OP, what @Erin’s Dad said. You don’t have the resumé for NU. Your guidance counselor should have the Fiske in her or his library. You’ll learn a lot from it. If s/he doesn’t have Fiske, Princeton Review or another will do. Also use the SuperMatch in combination with the reference work.</p>

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<p>A CCer suggests <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com”>www.collegedata.com</a> for a lot of the CDS info. It would help you target schools. </p>

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<p>Creative writing doesn’t have to be a dead end. Your major doesn’t determine what you do for a living - you could major in creative writing and go on to be a consultant.</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s at all true that almost all successful writers have a background in news reporting/journalism (if you are speaking about novelists). My favorite author, Amy Tan, pursued a BA in English and later got a PhD in linguistics. Diana Gabaldon (author of the Outlander series, which I am currently reading) majored in zoology and later got an MS in marine biology and a PhD in behavioral ecology (now her lush descriptions of the scenery and fauna in Scotland make a lot more sene). She was actually a research professor, and decided to write for fun ont he side. Kurt Vonnegut served in the military and then became a public relations officer and later, a technical writer (he actually majored in mechanical engineering). Dave Eggers did start out as a journalist, but for magazines, not newspapers. John Green double-majored in English and religious studies, and started working as a publishing assistant and production editor. Emma Donoghue has a BA and PhD in English. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie studied pharmacy, and later communications and political science, before getting a master’s in creative writing and African studies.</p>

<p>I just kind of pulled authors out of the air based on my reading list.</p>

<p>If you want to be a journalist because you want to be a journalist to support yourself while you try to find success as a novelist - or even want to be a journalist who writes novels on the side - then go forth and prosper. If you want to be a journalist because you think that’s the best or only route towards becoming a novelist…I urge you to rethink. You can major in pretty much anything and be a novelist, as long as you have the writing skill and talent (and can think of good stories that people like).</p>

<p>With that said, it sounds like you are looking for a major that will help you pay the bills while you write. That’s a good idea, but like I said, that could be anything - could be business, could be psychology (your original choice), could be math…could be anything. For that reason I wouldn’t feel like you had to transfer to a school with an excellent journalism school, unless you were actually really interested in being a journalist for a living (and even then I’ve heard it said from journalists that you don’t major in journalism in undergrad - you major in something else, like the area in which you want to do journalism, and then you get a master’s in journalism…or you just go start writing.)</p>

<p>Even if you did decide to become a journalist, and major in journalism at undergrad, you don’t have to go to the best journalism school in the country to do that.</p>

<p>You say</p>

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<p>But I don’t think you actually would be. First of all, if you went to Missouri for instance as an OOS student who transferred in, you would likely get no financial aid. Undergraduate juniors can only borrow up to $7,500 a year on their own - unless you get a co-signer, you can’t borrow anymore than that. Mizzou estimates that its yearly cost of attendance is $38,730 for a non-resident student. How will you cover the rest? Unless your parents borrow the rest, you can’t. If your parents do co-sign the rest (and hopefully, they don’t), that will put you nearly $80,000 in debt for an undergraduate journalism degree. Journalists do not make that much money starting out, and you’d be unable to repay that kind of debt. It’s especially bad for an aspiring writer to have that kind of debt hanging over them.</p>

<p>If you are in-state for UIUC, that’s probably the best choice for you. If your CC GPA is a 2.8-2.9, you should also be considering other Illinois options - like Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, UIC, maybe Northern Illinois, Illinois State, etc. You actually don’t have much time to raise your GPA - if you just started year 2 at your CC, that means you basically have this semester, since your applications will be due before the spring semester is over (Fall 2015 transfer deadline for UIUC is March 1). Transfer students to UIUC usually have at least a 3.0 in the media/communications school; in the school of liberal arts and sciences, it’s arond a 2.7 so you’d be okay there. (<a href=“Page Not Found, Illinois Undergraduate Admissions”>http://www.admissions.illinois.edu/apply/requirements_transfer_GPA.html&lt;/a&gt;). SIUC actually has a pretty good creative writing program, IIRC.</p>

<p>You would not be competitive to transfer into Northwestern or Wesleyan. Not sure about Syracuse, but my guess is that you would also not be very competitive there, either.</p>