Thursday, April 17, 2008
Use Grad School to Change Direction?
Q. I would like to write about religion and science but have been in business journalism for more than 10 years and am now the managing editor of a 130,000 circulation trade monthly for financial advisers and stockbrokers.
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I have just gotten into the
Columbia Journalism School for an M.S. degree, and have considered doing a joint degree program in journalism and religion, which I can apply to halfway through the journalism M.S.
I'm wondering, though, if going back to school -- especially getting the M.S. instead of the M.A. degree Columbia now has -- makes sense. I also wonder if I am too far along in my career for that to do very much for me, other than perhaps to make contacts, and whether I would be smarter to try freelancing on the side.
Is a Columbia J-School M.S. degree good only for entry-level jobs? What do recruiters think of the degree? Would I be better off, in this job environment, sticking to business and building on what I've got?
Best,
KristenA. Congratulations on being accepted into this program. It is very competitive.
This is a major crossroads for your career, as you are choosing between love and money.
Going to Columbia will help you switch from financial reporting to religion reporting. I don't doubt that it could help -- and that you need to do something big like this to make the switch.
It will be costly. You'll have to sharpen a pencil and calculate how much it will cost you to go to Columbia, how much you will lose in wages and what the differential will be between the job you have and what you might get out of writing about faith and spirituality.
The freelance option will always be out there, but you have not found it to be workable so far and probably wonder whether it will really work out in the future. Still, that might be the only avenue that makes financial sense for you.
The M.S. program and the M.A. program are equally prestigious to outsiders, I'd wager, and most Columbia grad students are not raw beginners, so don't worry about entering a program that would be inappropriate for you. If you go in, though, push to get classes and assignments that would be challenging to someone with your experience.
Grad school alums: Help us out. Did your program help you or your classmates change career paths?
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Coming Friday: He graduates soon from a program that is not the best and worries that his clips may not be all that special. He wonders whether sports writers usually start small.
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