<p>I want a school mainly in the northeast, maybe midwest. I'm from Pennsylvania. I want to be a sports writer, so I want a school with a great writing education, where I will learn how to write with meaning and write perfectly. Any schools offering a major like this, I would be very interested in. Also, I want a school with a newspaper I could write for, and a school that is good with getting internships. Thanks.</p>
<p>I don’t know your stats, but from what you’ve said, Kenyon in Ohio would be a good fit. Colgate is also supposed to have good writing, just off the top of my head.</p>
<p>I recall Syracuse having a great sports journalism program, if I’m not mistaken.</p>
<p>Northwestern U. — top journalism school, top student newspaper, plus big10 sports to write about. writing program is also top notch.</p>
<p>Might want to look at Holy Cross-Top30 liberal arts school -1 hour from Boston. HC has produced some great sportwriters for major newspapers and ESPN.</p>
<p>Ryan Howard University of Home Run Hitting.</p>
<p>Syracuse, NU, UMD. Strong sports(ish?) and strong journalism programs.</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>where in PA are you?</p>
<p>I don’t really understand what you’re looking for. You say you want to write “perfectly,” but who actually does that? Did William Faulkner write perfectly? Anatole France? </p>
<p>Do you want creative writing or journalistic writing. I can assure you that many, many people feel that journalistic writing training makes one as far from a “perfect” writer as one can get. Do you want to be a journalist? Do you want to be a creative writer?</p>
<p>What, exactly, do you want?</p>
<p>I second Northwestern; it sounds like a perfect match for you.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, I want a school that will teach and help me become a great and respected writer, and as i said write with meaning. Maybe I was wrong to use the phrase perfectly, but this is more like what I want. Sorry for the confusion. I don’t want to be a creative writer. I am mostly interested in becoming a feature writer if that helps more. </p>
<p>Also, Northwestern is way too expensive. My family will not be able to affore schools that are 45,000 a year like ivies, Northwestern, Syracuse, etc.</p>
<p>Journalism programs for under $45k?</p>
<p>SUNY Stony Brook has an undergrad journalism program. I dunno how highly it’s ranked, though.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not sure if it’s Missouri, but I think it is, but I’ve heard it has an excellent journalism program.</p>
<p>If you really want journalism, it might be best to do a humanities or social sciences major and just get really in to your school’s paper.</p>
<p>A lot of people working in journalism recommend majoring in something like English or Philosophy, rather than journalism. Boston College has produced a ton of top sports writers (Bob Ryan, Mike Lupica, a bunch of the Sports Illustrated writers), and it doesn’t have a journalism major. It does, however, have a lot of good sports teams, and a decent school newspaper.</p>
<p>If you want to be a dynamite writer, I would not go the journalism route, myself. My wife was a Hearst Scholar for journalism, and she’s STILL trying to offload habits she picked up studying journalistic writing style. Journalism tends to be to writing what structural engineering is to architecture.</p>
<p>IF you want to go the journalism route, however, Missouri is, in fact, well-known for its school of journalism and should be more affordable than a private school (but not necesarily, depending on your parents’ circumstances).</p>
<p>I have a bit of an unusual suggestion, actually. If you have the numbers, you might want to consider the University of Virginia. There is no journalism program, there, but there is a strong creative writing department and a daily newspaper, as well as some other student pubications that might interest you. This might give you the opportunity to learn journalistic style on the fly, build a body of work, and still explore writing as an art instead of as a craft.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, I too am interested in being a sportswriter and your advice really rings a bell with me. I started taking a journalism class in high school and it was a total joke. I was not allowed to be creative or write what I wanted to write about, so if anything it just made me disinterested in writing. I thought maybe this meant that I could not become a sportswriter, but your advice gives me hope that maybe my excellent overall writing is more important than following some crap journalism rules. I honestly think writing in sports message boards and on my own blog is far better training than a worthless journalism class. </p>
<p>What major would you suggest I look into Tarhunt? </p>
<p>As for another suggestion, Ohio University in Athens. They give good automatic scholarships for high test scores, not sure what you got, but it should be affordable. They have a nationally renowned journalism school if you choose to go that route, Jay Mariotti is a famous alum.</p>
<p>notthatgood4:</p>
<p>My limited understanding of the journalistic career path is that you often get hired based on your body of work on a college newspaper. Usually, you get hired at a small daily or weekly, then use your portfolio and growing reputation to work your way up to bigger and better publications and better jobs (like columnist).</p>
<p>But I’d like to hear from a working journalist if there is one that posts on these boards, because I’m far from an expert.</p>
<p>Ok, thanks, appreciate the input Tarhunt.</p>
<p>Univ of Iowa, Knox, Coe in order of increasing cost.</p>
<p>It would seem that being a good journalist would involve seeing things that aren’t on the surface–seeing things that are buried in the chaos and superficial appearances. That’s why I recommended English (looking for themes and symbolism beneath the plot), and philosophy (clarifying and analyzing vague concepts that are difficult to grasp). Both subjects also teach you to write very precisely.</p>