Q: I'm a senior journalism student at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown campus. I'm looking for a full-time starting position at a newspaper practically anywhere in the country -- but I'm also looking at a stint in the military reserves to help with my heavy student loans. I've got a good deal of clips under my belt from the school paper and our 35,000-circulation local daily. I'm also editor-in-chief of the school paper.

My adviser says there's no way to dovetail the two jobs. I'll be graduating a semester early, so I could get boot camp out of the way before I actually reported to my newspaper job, but there's always the threat of (federally protected) deployment, not to mention I can't get solid advice on how to conduct the initial job search.

What can I do?

Dan

A: I agree with your advisor.

Deployment is real these days and editors might be less inclined to hire someone whose first duty is to the reserves for weekend exercises and the like.

I know journalists and newspapers that work this relationship out well, but I think you're complicating the start of your career by adding these additional responsibilities. Long-term, the experiences you would have in the reserves and the responsibilities you'd learn could help you in the newsroom, but this double-barreled approach to starting a career seems to me to be problematic.

You could, in an effort to pay for your journalism degree, blow the chance of getting into journalism.

And unless you're prepared to be sent to Iraq, it could be a mistake.

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