Q: I am a college senior who will be graduating with an English degree because my university has no journalism department. However, I have spent four years as a beat reporter working for my school newspaper, writing anywhere from two to five stories a week. I had a reporting internship two summers ago at my small hometown newspaper, and an editorial internship at a national news magazine last summer. I have a few clips from my internships, but the majority are from my daily college newspaper. Ideally, I would like to find a reporting job at a small daily newspaper pretty much anywhere, rural or urban.

But, I would like the summer free for certain family obligations, as well as one last chance to visit home. Will I be putting myself in a bad position if I wait until June or July to apply for reporting jobs? I'm worried that all of the recent college grads will already be on top of every reporting job out there. However, I know that no newspaper will wait around until August for me if I apply before I graduate. Should I try to balance my family obligations with work as an intern or stringer at my local paper this summer and get a few more clips? Or is it best to pin down a job as soon as possible?

Anna

A: I understand your dilemma, and would like to see you working, too.

I think you have already discovered the best strategy: working as an intern or very bsy stringer as you stay near your family. That is Plan A. If you can do that, you will not need to choose between career and family. You will have both.

Now, then. You are correct to surmise that no one will offer you a job prior to graduation that they will be content to sit on until August. They'll most likely want you to start withing a few weeks. I cannot say, however, that you will be losing your chance for a good career start if you delay your real search till late summer. You could be fine, especially if you can find a way to spend most of your summer doing journalism. So don't worry too much about that. It is diffucult to get a career started, but I don't see the summer as having any advantage over autumn.

As if you don't have enough to think about, let me suggest a third course: Try to get a job, a really good one, to start when you graduate. Apply only for jobs that would clearly be better than the family option. If you can land that great job, go for it. But if you don't, you can spend that time with your family, doing as much journalism as you can, confident that you took a good crack at starting your career, but that you'll take another crack at it -- using that flexibility you have -- at the end of the summer.