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What do I need to study in order to have a career in Journalism?

My dream is to have a career that allows me to travel around the world, meet all different types of people, and study different cultures-bringing them together. Film/Photography, anything that involves creativity is also something I want to be involved with in connection to Journalism

Community college advisors, sadly, are often not very good at their jobs. With rare exception, they kinda' wish they could have gotten a job at a four-year university; but, instead, they're stuck at a local community college. That, sadly, is also the lament of many community college instrcutors.

That said, community colleges are an EXCELLENT value, and the degrees they issue are the real deal. Fully accredited, and transferable, on their face (usually) as the first and second (freshman and sophomore) years of a four-year bachelors degree; thereby allowing the transferee to begin the four-year bachelors degree as a junior, and so in only two more years, voila!, one has not just ONE degree, but TWO (the associates, and the bachelors) to put on one's resume. Plus, the two years of community college usually costs, depending on the state, a mere fraction of what those same two years at a four-year college/university would have cost.

I, personally, just LOVE the community and junior college system in the US. It's a great bargain, is intentionally accessible, and it can literally save the life of someone who, were it not for the community college, would never have a shot at college at all. Some community colleges even allow those with no high school diploma to admit on a probationary basis, and then if they do well, they become regular college students and get an associates degree. Gotta' like that!

And here's the thing: The first year-and-a-half or so of either an associates or a bachelors degree is all "lower-division general education" (LDGE)... courses in broad range of subjects which have nothing to do with whatever will eventually be the degree's major; and which are intended to both provide a well-rounded "general" education as part of the degree, and also to expose the student to all kinds of different subject areas so that those who haven't yet decided what will be their degree's major might have his/her interest trigger tripped by one of said subjects so that s/he may more easily pick a major.

If you're just beginning your second (sophomore) year, then you've probably got at least the first semester (give or take) of this year that's still going to be LDGE. And then, after that, you've got whatever courses you have to take for the associates degree's major (and maybe an elective or two).

I'd worry about THAT, and nothing else yet. Just fulfill the LDGE requirements, and then choose a major . If there's an AA or AS in journalism, or photography, or art... choose one of those; or if you think you'll be a journalist, then make the AA or AS in English or something... maybe with whatever extra English courses you take being in WRITING).

I'll tell you one thing, though: Any good journalist -- especially if s/he thinks s/he's going to travel the world, had better be broadly educated in things like history, religion... the humanities. So look long and hard at those kinds of courses, too. Good writers take the humanities VERY seriously.

But just get the AA or AS, and don't worry too much about precisely what the bachelors will be quite yet. The better you do on the AA or AS, and the better grades you get, and the more univerally acceptable will be its both LDGE and courses in the major (and the electives) to pretty much ANY four-year bachelors program, the better off you'll be. Look at the LDGE and other requirements for entry into the top three to five schools you're considering (by downloading their catalogs, and looking closely at the "requirements for admission" or "admisssion requirements" section) and just make sure that your AA or AS meets those requirements.

You've already seen, with your own eyes, that the counselors there at your community college aren't going to be very helpful. Fine. To heck with them. Everything you need to know about how to craft your AA or AS is right there in the "admissions requirements" (or equivalent) section of the catalogs of the four-year bachelors programs you're considering. Download them, and READ them.

And once you're comfortable in those catalogs, you'll begin to realize that everything you'll need to know about all the different bachelors degrees -- be they in journalism, or photography, or whatever -- will also be right there in those catalogs. And by reading what are the goals of those degrees, and the courses and their descriptions, you'll very quickly begin to grasp what's involved in each kind of degree, and what you'll get out of them.

Being a journalist can be a GREAT way to see the world. Just ask Christiane Amanpour... or any of a NUMBER of well-known, well-regarded journalists who have reported from nearly every corner of the globe. You mentioned journalism AND photography. Well, guess what: Things have changed since when I was young. Journalists, today, must know how to write/report AND produce. TV journalists these days need to know how to operate the camera as well as be ON camera. So I would strongly recommend that your journalism degree have plenty of photojournalism, and even TV and radio journalism courses in it. To do what you want to do, you'll need to be VERSATILE, and capable of virtually any kind of journalism, anywhere.

You'll need to be good at languages, too. Since you can't know where you'll end-up in the world, it will be hard to pick a language now. But mastering something like Spanish will, at the very least, prepare you for traveling anywhere in Latin America and Spanish-speaking Europe. Then if you find yourself having to go somewhere else, there's alway crash-course language learning systems like Rosetta Stone. [grin]

No one can really tell you what you should do, here. YOU must do the research; expose yourself to the countries that interest you; learn about journalism careers. What to do, what courses to take once you're in the four-year bachelors program; what major to choose, what minor... it will all come to you. Trust me on this. It will all present itself to you, and become clear, in time.

Just decide, for now, what swamp you want to drain, and drain just that swamp. And right now, that swamp is your AA or AS degree in community college. Period. Worry about nothing else for the moment.

Hope that helps.

Why are Americans all so Stupid?

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