Every journalism school I look into mandates waiting until junior year to even apply into their program, which just seems ridiculous to me. I understand they want to provide a full liberal arts education, but I don’t want to take many of the classes outside the department, and those that I do I can sign up for on my own. Do any colleges with at least somewhat notable journalism programs allow starting freshman, or at least sophomore year, or require less courses outside the field?
Some schools, like the University of Oregon, allows freshmen to take introductory journalism classes as a freshmen as “premajors” and are admitted to the major to take advanced classes as a sophomore. Other schools, like Northwestern and Missouri, allow students to be directly admitted to the school of journalism. But all journalism students have to take the introductory journalism classes at first before allowing students to choose a concentration/interest area. Also, at any school you’re going to have to take plenty of classes outside of the journalism/communications department–junior/senior year will allow you to take more journalism courses than the first couple of years, but out of 120-140 credits you’ll take, only about half of those will be from journalism.
What kind of classes do you recommend taking for the remainder of the hours, besides those that are required? What are some good double majors/minors if they are required?
To fulfill all however many credit hours you need to graduate, you’ll have specific requirements for each kind of class you need (9 credits for humanities, 6 for math, 14 for social sciences, etc.) so I can’t recommend what kinds to take as you’ll pretty much take it all. I know it sounds complicated, but you’ll see what I mean if you look at a course catalog for a school. It’s all pre-planned for what you need to take.
Common majors/minors that complement journalism well are economics, polisci, and history.
Would you recommend taking other classes that supplement your journalism degree, and add skills that could be useful, particularly in your planned specialization, or would it be better to focus on a"backup plan" that might allow you to have success in another field if journalism doesn’t work out?
Like I said, you have to take all sorts of classes, so you’ll definitely be taking a wide range of classes, but yes, do take classes that will be helpful for a journalism career. And most majors that would be useful for journalism would be useful for other careers. For example, I’m double-majoring in political science. I can do a lot with that, between getting my PhD and becoming a professor, working for the government, think tank, etc. And even with a journalism degree you can do plenty; you learn communications skills, of course, so if journalism doesn’t work out, you can still work in a communications-type position elsewhere.
Thanks so much, sorry I had so many questions but you were a great help. I think you pretty much answered everything I had, very much appreciated.
Depending on your academic stats, some schools will direct admit you to the J school. Also, most every school has a student newspaper that may be unaligned with the journalism program that you can dive into right away.