It seems to me, and maybe this is just me, that a major in Journalism is too ‘professional’ and specialized. What is there to learn after a certain point? Most learning in the field, I would assume, would be on the job. Before then, you should hone in on your reading and writing skills, like with an English/Philosophy/History major or something.
I’ll be the Senior Editor of my school paper (currently the Junior Editor), wrote a couple sports articles for a local paper, and ‘interned’ for this website over the summer where I got paid to write a few little things. I’m in the Journalism class at my school, and based on that, experience seems to trump book-learning. I write better than some of my peers because I read, not because I took classes.
So, is it necessary (in this shrinking and dying field that was formerly the lifeblood of American freedom) to major in Journalism to get a job? It’s probably hard to get a job no matter what, but does it hurt your chances if you major in something like English? Will you just get tossed off the application pile unless you have a Journalism degree?
Your online portfolio of published articles will get you the job most of the time, but there are still some things you can kearn in journalism classes, depending on the types of courses available. Many journalism jobs available now need someone with skills to publish directly to a variety of media – websites, e-newsletters, etc. They often want someone with the ability to take their own photos and upload their work using software common in the industry. They expect that writers will be able to customize their stories for different social media outlets. You can still develop and demonstrate these skills on your own.
A journalism major is by no means necessary; there are plenty of journalists who majored in other subjects. What’s important is experience; even if you major in journalism, no one will hire you without experience. However, that’s not to say that journalism classes are pointless. At my school, at least, a few classes involve working for the school of journalism’s newspaper, which involves a lot of work and gives you a lot of experience. Other classes involve learning how to put together multimedia packages or writing certain stories (investigative, sports, etc.) which, while for a class, is still not just taking notes on pointless stuff. Still other classes teach journalism ethics. You don’t HAVE to major in journalism, but I personally like being a journalism major. If you do major in journalism, I would suggest double-majoring.
@CE527M Would you recommend double majoring in a more classical major, something like English, or in a field that you would want to write about, like Economics, Political Science, etc.?
I am a journalist and I answer these questions all the time here. This is what you have to do to get a job in journalism:
You do not need to major in journalism. If you do, you should double major. To get a job in journalism after graduation, you need to accomplish two things while you are in college: 1. Get clips. Lots of them. 2. Get at least one substantial summer internship. To get the internship, see #1. To get #1, go to college—any college—that has a DAILY student-run newspaper. The newspaper should be independent of the university, i.e., does not get funds as a student activity and is not part of a journalism class. Walk in to the newspaper office the first day you are on campus (there is always someone in there) and ask how to sign up. You will immediately get trained and get assignments.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to work on a DAILY student newspaper—not every other day, not weekly, not monthly.
Do not go to a school where it is required to be a journalism student to work on the paper. As I said, you need to go to a college that has a student-run paper that is INDEPENDENT of the university, i.e., does not get funds from the university, is not part of a class or program, and is not censored in any way by the university. Many, many schools with this type of newspaper do not even have a journalism major: University of Michigan (The Michigan Daily), Cornell (Cornell Daily Sun), etc.