McAdams encourages j-students to forget grad school

Posted by Bryan on 4/03/08 • Categorized as career talk

Mindy's been on a tear lately. First it was internships, now it's grad school. I mostly agree with her advice. However, I also think there is a place for grad school for students who don't attend big journalism programs. I had a couple of students when I was at North Greenville College who had performed well in all our classes, but they were hard-pressed to get a decent job out of school, so they went to a grad program. It gave them more intense training, better clips, but also a better name on the resume when they went out looking. When you're at a program with 3-5 professors, having added perspective from a grad program can help.

This was especially true in photojournalism. We had two photoj classes at NGC, but not much equipment to help the students out. I encouraged students who were serious about photoj to either transfer to another school or go to a graduate program after their time at NGC was over.

For most folks, however, going straight to grad school makes little sense. Of course, the longer you're out, the harder it is to go back in (bills and such), but that's not a journalism-specific problem.