Life After College
I earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of Utah in Journalism. While in school I was exposed to two types of people who were also drawn to this major.
The first is the girl who wants to be the talking head/failed actress who reads your local nightly news. The second was the guy who thinks that because he watches a lot of sports and has "interesting" insights, he will be given a job as a sports reporter. And not a sports reporter in the realistic sense that he will write about high school sports for the local paper, but sports reporter in the sense that Jim Rome is sports reporter.
There was also a significantly smaller group of people who were actually serious about journalism, but those nerds don't serve a purpose in making my sad, sad point here.
In every journalism course I took, I made it my mission to help these people, who in my eyes were simply lost souls looking to be saved, to see that journalism is a noble profession and a worthwhile pursuit. More often than not my efforts were fruitless, but occasionally someone would see that real journalism can be a powerful tool to affect change.
Then were a few instances where my efforts, seen clearly in hindsight, ended up being me getting suckered into doing someone else's work for them.
Why am I bringing this up?
For starters, in spite of my academic prowess and passion for the trade, my life since graduation has been less than stellar. My full time employment isn't by any means fulfilling, and my independent endeavors have been financial liabilities more than boons.
I learned yesterday that a person who fit in to the last group of people I described above was drafted after college to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I am happy for him, but there is the spiteful, petty old man who lives inside me who couldn't help but think about how I pushed my brain to its limits to finish college with an impressive GPA while this person, who got by to some extent on the efforts of others, will be playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday.
See? Who says you can't do anything with a degree in Journalism?
The first is the girl who wants to be the talking head/failed actress who reads your local nightly news. The second was the guy who thinks that because he watches a lot of sports and has "interesting" insights, he will be given a job as a sports reporter. And not a sports reporter in the realistic sense that he will write about high school sports for the local paper, but sports reporter in the sense that Jim Rome is sports reporter.
There was also a significantly smaller group of people who were actually serious about journalism, but those nerds don't serve a purpose in making my sad, sad point here.
In every journalism course I took, I made it my mission to help these people, who in my eyes were simply lost souls looking to be saved, to see that journalism is a noble profession and a worthwhile pursuit. More often than not my efforts were fruitless, but occasionally someone would see that real journalism can be a powerful tool to affect change.
Then were a few instances where my efforts, seen clearly in hindsight, ended up being me getting suckered into doing someone else's work for them.
Why am I bringing this up?
For starters, in spite of my academic prowess and passion for the trade, my life since graduation has been less than stellar. My full time employment isn't by any means fulfilling, and my independent endeavors have been financial liabilities more than boons.
I learned yesterday that a person who fit in to the last group of people I described above was drafted after college to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I am happy for him, but there is the spiteful, petty old man who lives inside me who couldn't help but think about how I pushed my brain to its limits to finish college with an impressive GPA while this person, who got by to some extent on the efforts of others, will be playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday.
See? Who says you can't do anything with a degree in Journalism?
posted by sleepy viking at
2:09 PM
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