College Question

MitchyD

I'm listening to the How to Not Suck episodes again, but I wanted to inquire about a Journalism "certificate". The local college has a one year program, and I don't know if it'd be worth anything. Would it be worth it even to learn for a year? I think I need a degree first, but this made me curious. Here's the site's description:


Journalism Certificate

The Journalism Program in the Centre for Communication Studies at Mount Royal College offers an intensive certificate program in journalism education for graduates of a degree program at a recognized college or university. The two semester program will involve intensive training in print and broadcast journalism, with considerable exposure photo journalism, and associated software. This certificate will be of interest to someone with a degree who wants to now receive some specific training that could lead to employment. It will also be of interest to students of law, political science, business and other disciplines that require an understanding of how the media and journalists function. Mount Royal also has an eight semester Journalism Program that is an Applied Degree program which has an excellent reputation with both graduates and the media industry.
Career Possibilities

Communications is a wide open field with many avenues and opportunities for careers in print and online journalism, broadcasting and publishing, industry and technical communications, and public relations. Changing technologies are expanding the work of communicators to include the creation and management of databases and the ability to use advanced network and information technologies. Graduates of the Centre for Communication Studies work for governments, agencies, large corporations, private consulting firms, magazines, journals, newspapers and other publishers, radio and television networks and stations, and social agencies. A number are self-employed.

Neito

Certs are bullshit. If they're not offering enough credits for an associates, you're probably not going to get much out of that except for transfer credits.

Jason

I strongly recommend another career path. As a journalist, I can tell you there are six people for every journalism job. The print medium is having trouble, radio is all but dead, the Internet has made magazines largely irrelevant, and television is too superficial.

What would you want to do with such a certificate, anyway?

MitchyD

Sweet, I thought I heard that on GeekNights, and just wanted to clarify.

Railith

You've already freelanced for Xbox magazine Mitchy so maybe a cert would help with some credibility.

In all honesty I have no idea how people get journalism jobs.

Jason

JournalismJobs.com

Sail

English is hands-down my favorite subject and I would love to get an English degree if only the job choices weren't so damn limited. It's pretty much writer, journalist, or teacher.

YoshoKatana

I believe this is relevant to our discussion.

But we really need some good, muckraking journalists.

HungryJoe

English is hands-down my favorite subject and I would love to get an English degree if only the job choices weren't so damn limited. It's pretty much writer, journalist, or teacher.

One of my goals after possible retirement is to get a Ph.D. in English Literature. I probably would have gone that route from the start, but as you pointed out, the job opportunities are very limited. I would add "lawyer" to your list, though - many, many people in law school get there with English degrees. However, DON'T GO TO LAW SCHOOL. The legal field is insanely crowded for lawyers. On the other hand, paralegals have it made at the moment. So if you feel that you absolutely must be in the legal field, try your luck as a paralegal.

But we really need some good, muckraking journalists.

We do. We really, really do. However, most "journalists" these days are really infotainment personalities. Helen Thomas is the only journalist worth the name in the WH Press Corps. Watch her some time. She'll ask a really relevant question about the war, Dana Perino will ignore her, and the next "journalist" will ask whether Chimpy had bananas or strawberries on his Post Toasties this morning, to which Dana will devote about twenty minutes to answering.

MitchyD

You've already freelanced for Xbox magazine Mitchy so maybe a cert would help with some credibility.

In all honesty I have no idea how people get journalism jobs.

I'd rather go whole-hog, sir. It's better to have it, as many full time positions require something.

I am looking in to a diploma program for Journalism at SAIT - Southern Alberta Institute of Technology - would an IT school's diploma for journalism be worth a good god damn? Or am I better off trying (and I mean REALLY TRYING. Writing was about all I was good at in school, so I never graduated with a science. Epic Fail etc.) for University in a year? I wanna do something now, I'm doing nothing with my life, so I think a diploma in journalism for two years sounds good.

But not if it's worthless.

Jason

I ask again: What do you want to do with said degree? There's a load of difference between newspaper writing and gaming mag writing and television production. Tell me what you want to do, and I'll tell you what schools and classes to focus on.

MitchyD

I don't need to know "what schools" - I'll go wherever I can that's remotely local. I don't plan on moving to the states or across the country. There's universities all over the place, here. As for what I want to do, it's just write. Regardless of gaming magazine relevance, online will always have a place for writers, and even if there's more writers than available spots, I seem to be doing well for myself now with freelancing for a gaming magazine and its online component.

I do not know what I would do with the certificate. That is what I am asking. I want to write, and I will do it where I can but for now, we will just say mag writing. I do not know if this cert. is worth anything, but I think I may take a BA and get a degree in journalism there...

ladyobsolete

As a student of communications, I really cannot see any point in paying for an education in journalism for any other reason than wanting to go through the process. If you are already getting free lance jobs, leverage what you have done to get more projects else where.

Jason

I don't know of any reputable journalistic organization that will hire someone without a bachelor's degree in some related field (English, communications).

MitchyD

Considering it, but it's tough to make a living doing it from home. I'd prefer a full time on-site job, but that's a ways off.

Dkong

I don't want to start a new thread, so I'm gonna throw out my college related question in this college related thread:

What is the difference between Bachelor of the Arts and Bachelor of Science? Is Bachelor of Arts the shit one?

Andrew

What is the difference between Bachelor of the Arts and Bachelor of Science? Is Bachelor of Arts the shit one?

Depends on what major you are going for. If you want a technical major, B.S. is best, but if you want Liberal Arts like English or History, go for a B.A.

Zeehat

What is the difference between Bachelor of the Arts and Bachelor of Science?

First you need to ask yourself a question. Do you want to get a job when you graduate?

Luke Burrage

I got a BA degree in music production. I stepped right into a job working for a TV station as a sound recordist. The person who fixed the mixing desk when I broke it probably had a BS.

onewild

What is the difference between Bachelor of the Arts and Bachelor of Science?

First you need to ask yourself a question. Do you want to get a job when you graduate?

Surely the first thing to ask yourself is, what do I enjoy doing and what do I want to do for a living. If you hate physics but love history, then getting a BA would be the way forward.
A BS in history would be pretty useless.

Vhdblood

I got a BA degree in music production. I stepped right into a job working for a TV station as a sound recordist. The person who fixed the mixing desk when I broke it probably had a BS.

This made my day.

Dkong

What is the difference between Bachelor of the Arts and Bachelor of Science?

First you need to ask yourself a question. Do you want to get a job when you graduate?

Yes. Also, I'm looking to get into the computer science department at OSU, if that has any bearing on my initial question (and I think it does...).

HungryJoe

What is the difference between Bachelor of the Arts and Bachelor of Science?

First you need to ask yourself a question. Do you want to get a job when you graduate?

Surely the first thing to ask yourself is, what do I enjoy doing and what do I want to do for a living. If you hate physics but love history, then getting a BA would be the way forward.
A BS in history would be pretty useless.

I have a BS in history.

However, as you say, it's pretty useless. My "real" undergrad degrees are a BS in physics and a BS in mathematics. Those are the degrees I used to get into law school to get my JD degree. When I was filling out the application to be awarded my JD, I was looking at my transcript and I saw that I had a lot of history courses that I completed over the years out of nothing but interest. I looked at the degree requirements for history degrees and saw that I had done everything required for a BS in history, so I thought, "Why not?" and applied to be awarded a BS in history. So I ended up being awarded the history degree at about the same time as the law degree.

I have a lot of english credits lying around as well. I could pick up an english bachelor's if I complete one or two classes. I might do that sometime in the near future. I would have done it earlier, but I spent some time collecting credits in electrical engineering before I decided that I didn't want to do electrical engineering.

Rym

I looked at the degree requirements for history degrees and saw that I had done everything required for a BS in history, so I thought, "Why not?" and applied to be awarded a BS in history. So I ended up being awarded the history degree at about the same time as the law degree.

RIT wouldn't let me do that. I basically took the entire "Professional Technical Communication" and "Network Engineering" degrees in the course of getting my "Information Technology" BS, but RIT wouldn't award them unless I took an arbitrary number of extra general education courses per degree.

gomidog

Is Bachelor of Arts the shit one?

You suck.
To answer you question, if you are going into science, it seems a better idea to get a BS.
However, if you are, say, a writer, or an artist your BA degree is not a "shit one."

Apreche

RIT wouldn't let me do that. I basically took the entire "Professional Technical Communication" and "Network Engineering" degrees in the course of getting my "Information Technology" BS, but RIT wouldn't award them unless I took an arbitrary number of extra general education courses per degree.

Reason: $$$

onewild

From the above post about credits and such, I see that our system of degrees is totally different to the American one.

Dkong

Is Bachelor of Arts the shit one?

You suck.
To answer you question, if you are going into science, it seems a better idea to get a BS.
However, if you are, say, a writer, or an artist your BA degree is not a "shit one."

Well I remember Rym and Scott saying BA was the shitty option, but they were probably referring to CS and IT.

Jason

Is Bachelor of Arts the shit one?

You suck.
To answer you question, if you are going into science, it seems a better idea to get a BS.
However, if you are, say, a writer, or an artist your BA degree is not a "shit one."

I concur. And I am scowling at the sinners. It's really a matter of focus. The BS emphasizes math and science. Meanwhile, Emily and I had to focus on foreign language, history, economics, rhetoric, media, and philosophy. The only reason Scrym say the BA is "shitty" is because they are measuring success in terms of utility. It certainly is more difficult to find paying, recession-proof jobs related to the BA.

Zeehat

The BA

I think you mean BS. And "it emphasizes" usefulness. No offense:P

HungryJoe

From the above post about credits and such, I see that our system of degrees is totally different to the American one.

"Credits" translates to "classes". Most classes were worth three credits upon completion. Some more involved ones could be worth as much as four and a half credits. Some very easy ones were worth only one.

It's not so much the number of credits, however. Each degree plan required a number of courses to be completed in a certain order, and possibly even independent study, thesis preparation and/or dissertation defense. If we say that we had enough credits to complete a degree, we just mean that we had successfully completed a series of classes that would confer the degree.