Do I need Creative Cloud as a Journalism major?

Student Lounge College Life
1

Hi guys,

I currently am using a 13" Macbook Air that belongs to my school for all my day-to-day computing and its great for my needs. I am also very fortunate because it has all of Adobe Cs5 on it. On a daily basis, I will use Photoshop and InDesign to create and edit documents and photos for my school newspaper. Since I am planning on majoring in journalism in college, I assume that I will need access to these programs when I decide to purchase my own computer (probably going to be a 13" Macbook Pro w/ Retina Display or a Dell XPS 13). I would like to spend as little money as possible but unfortunately I don’t think I can just buy InDesign separately without spending a ton of money. My question is should I subscribe to the full creative cloud with the student discount, or just buy something like Lightroom and Photoshop Elements?

If there are any journalism or prospective journalism majors can you guys comment on if you use the Adobe Suite?

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It’s going to vary per school, but so far I have not had to use Adobe. However, I am only a freshman and might have to use it down the road. It largely depends on your journalism track; design students will definitely have to use it, but if you’re reporting, possibly not. Also, if you need it for a class, there’s a possibility they’ll provide it for free. With all the variables involved, I would hold off if you need to know for sure. There’s no reason you need it right now; if you do need it, it probably won’t be until you get into the upper level journo classes.