

J-Schools Play Catchup - mjfern
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/journ-t.html

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brandnewlow
I went to Medill (Northwestern's Grad J-school). Graduated a year ago.

J-schools are struggling because their costs are rising while their obvious
value is diminishing.

Going to j-school seems to have always been controversial among journalists.
The successful people who didn't go snicker when students ask them if they
should go. The people who went and are still in journalism say it was worth
it. The people who went and who are no longer in journalism say it was a waste
of time.

J-schools have never been great at "placing" students with media companies due
to the volatile nature of the industry and the frankly hit or miss nature of
the students they take. Getting into an "elite" j-school is not so hard as
you'd think. The admission staff refused to tell me their acceptance rate at
Medill, but I suspect it's around 40%.

But now they're doing even worse at "placing" students, especially grad
students. At Medill, there's an undergrad program and a grad student program.
The undergrads I met and worked with were almost all bright go-getters. They'd
never failed at anything in their life and really went after things. Because
NU has them for 4 years, they intern at media companies every summer
throughout college. These folks get jobs because they have killer experience
and a few connections from the program.

The grad program....different story. There were working journalists who wanted
a degree to cement their status as a professional. There were people who were
there just to rack up another degree. There were people who had no clue why
they were there. There were people looking to break into journalism (my case).
And when these folks get out of grad school...there's nothing for them.
They're usually too old to rack up 3-4 unpaid internships like the undergrads
so solid jobs at major papers and broadcast companies are out of the question.
This leaves B2B publications, niche newsletters run out of basements in Skokie
(I wasn't sure if I was going to be hired or murdered during the job
interview), and......marketing and P.R. which have a place, but certainly
isn't what people were signing up for when they went off to j-school.

These are fine options. The point is that the best undergrad j-schoolers are
getting entry-level jobs at ABC and the Wall Street Journal while the best
grad schoolers are landing at places a few rungs further down and/or
struggling to find a gig at all.

They're not finding work. There are many, many reasons for why they're not
finding work, but they aren't.

Meanwhile the cost of running these grad programs, retaining and recruiting
faculty, marketing the school etc are only going up, up, up.

So J-school's getting more expensive as it's power diminishes. That's a
problem.

This program in Arizona is very interesting. Tim McGuire wrote some nice
things about me, so I'm a fan of his. I wish them the best of luck. I wish
they weren't telling the students to read Mashable, but that's just me. :)

A year ago, when I finished up J-school, I had a handful of job offers that I
turned down to dive into a bootstrapped, solo startup that's still got a ways
to go. Going it alone was a tough decision, but it was made tougher by the
fact that I didn't meet hardly anyone who was thinking "startup." Largely due
to worries about paying back their crushing loans, healthcare etc, all thing
that require creative solutions when working on a startup.

The lack of entrepreneurial thinking is a big problem for journalism students.
If more of them saw themselves as independent companies that need to create
unique value in the world in order to make a living, they'd be a bit better
off.

Entrepreneurial thinking will lead to j-schoolers being smarter about how they
package themselves. It's assumed that you're a solid writer and reporter. What
else do you have? Being good at flash doesn't count. Being able to make a
slideshow doesn't count. You need to have a hook, something you can do better
than anyone else in the business, to have a chance.

