Just say no to grad school?

Mindy McAdams had a post this morning that as a grad student I thought is worth sharing. She writes about a topic I’ve been living for the past two years of my life; grad school.

She makes some valid points and others that I don’t agree with.

Mindy writes

Journalism is not rocket science. You don’t need a master’s degree to know how to do it, and you won’t do it well until you haul yourself out of school and into a working newsroom. Journalism is learned on the job, and if you’re not prepared to go out and do it after four years in undergrad, maybe you should just give up on it — and go to law school instead.

No one in a newsroom will respect your master’s degree, and what’s more, there is no reward at all for having it. So why do you want it?

I posted a reply on her site, but thought it’d be good to share here since I know a bunch of you are either in grad school, on the fence about it or soon to be attending grad school.

Here’s my reply:

Interesting post Mindy with some valid points.

From my own personal experience as a grad student in the Visual Communications program at Ohio University I can confidently say grad school for me was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Environments like the ones at OU don’t exist in newspapers and if your undergrad wasn’t in journalism or in a program that had a weak journalism or photojournalism program finding a place like OU can be a tremendous asset to your growth.

This is the most intense and fertile environment I’ve ever known and nothing my internships have come close to matching.

Sure working in the real world is great, but don’t dismiss what surrounding yourself with passionate and driven people can do for your growth.

For example last year in my video class two of my classmates included Bob Sacha and Chad Stevens both of whom are now working at MediaStorm as producers. Talk about setting the bar high.

I don’t know many environments like this that fosters creativity, critical thinking and promotes strong quality storytelling. Just how many newsrooms can say they do that on a regular basis?

I have to disagree with not doing journalism well until you leave school. How many newspapers do you see doing work on par with what my classmates did with Soul of Athens? Or doing what my classmates and I did for our capstone class?

If you’re interested a few links to the projects we did for the class -

Jenn’s multimedia piece on Mental Illness in America’s Prisons – http://indepth.jennackerman.com/trapped/feature.html

My piece on Snowbirds in Quartzsite, AZ
http://www.timgruber.com/moment

Kainaz’s print piece on the public housing crisis in New Orleans – http://kainazamaria.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/right-of-return/

So basically what I’m trying to say with all the shameless plugging of my friends and peers is that graduate school is more than just a piece of paper and I wouldn’t expect anyone to respect the fact that I have a masters degree, but with time I hope I’d earn their respect with the skills and knowledge I bring to the table.

The skills and knowledge that took birth and grew in grad school.