Q: I'm a 22-year-old college student. I'm just finishing up my fourth year, and I've realized that I've been dumb. When I was in high school, journalism was my passion. I wanted to get my degree and move to Colorado and work for Focus on the Family or move to some big city and get a job with a big newspaper or magazine. But when my senior year hit, I listened to everyone but myself and went into college aiming for a degree in Trumpet Performance. After two years, I realized I can't make any money doing that, so I switch to psychology. Why? I don't know. I am about to embark on my 5th and final year. It's too late to change my degree again, but I'm applying for a newspaper job here in Omaha. Here's my question:
Do you have any suggestions for me? I want to pursue this career, but I don't know how to get started without a degree. I was the yearbook assistant editor for two years and have worked on many class group projects where we made newspaper (I was layout editor). Any advice would be great. Thanks.
Amanda
A: Your career path is unique, that's for sure.
Here are three possibilities:
- Get as many clips as you can while you still have some college left and try to parlay them into an internship, perhaps for the summer after graduation. One does not need a journalism degree to go into newspapering, but the experience is essential.
- Although you seem to be getting your fill of college already, a second path might be to get a master's degree in journalism.
- A third option with scarcer opportunities is to get a job at a news assistant at a newspaper that would be open to having you grow into a reporting job as you work there at some entry-level work.
