A Hodgepodge of questions from a soon-to-be graduate....

I appreciate the point that a masters/MBA/JD can be the ticket to high-paying jobs in management, etc. down the line.

But journalism has historically been viewed more as a trade than a profession. Many hiring employers, who may only have a BA from State U. or none at all, will look at an applicant with an advanced degree and disregard them on that basis.

Maybe they don't want to hire someone with more education than they have, maybe they've got a bias against people who went to big-name schools (like the Holy Trinity of Northwestern-Missouri-Columbia for journalism degrees), maybe they don't want to pay the higher wage that a multiple-degree person will demand.

I don't see how having a masters/MBA/JD will help a young person trying to get an entry-level job in this business. It was actually suggested to me that I leave my advanced degree off my resume for a while.

 

I wouldn't leave anything I've accomplished off my resume. Whether it's positions or education, it is who I am.
If an employer wants to "dumb you down" for prospects of employment, he/she is trying to minimize you. Attempting to hire at a bargain.
And, I find the whole line disingenuous. And quite sad.

 

MBA = Master's in Bullshit and Ass-wiping that gets you nowhere once they outsource your field to India, where they all have Master's in Busting Ass for half the pay in cubicles fit for the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby.

 

Yes. It's even more impressive. Anyone can take out a fat loan, take 12 months off from work and float through graduate school.

If you can pump out a thesis while working full-time, there's nothing you can't accomplish.

 

Well, I don't know about you . . .

 

I don't want to threadjack, but I have a serious question. It seems a lot of people on here are pretty high on higher education (i.e. anything more than a BA). I have a BA and 6 years experience working at smaller papers, and I'll have another year in the biz before it's time for me and my wife to move (and for me to start looking for another job). I'd like to move up to a daily or at least a bigger circulation non-daily, but I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should explore the possibility of going back to school for a MA.

So I guess what I want to know is: At what point does real-world experience trump a degree? A lot of the MA in Journalism programs I've looked at specialize in training fresh college grads with no actual journalism experience. I'm not about to waste a year and a half of my life to have someone teach me the difference between slander and libel. Is there something else I should be looking for? Or should I just keep plugging away and try to rise the corporate ladder the old fashioned way? For that matter, would a larger paper even look twice at an applicant with my credentials, or should I just resign myself to writing for the Podunk Weekly News for the rest of my life?

 

If you've got 6 years of good, strong experience, and a BA -- and more importantly, you have the right skills, right attitude, right timing, right connections (oh, and right luck) to move up to the right job -- then the lack of a higher degree isn't going to make a difference. Doesn't mean you'll ever end up at the New York Times; doesn't even mean you'll move up at all. There's so many factors involved. But I highly doubt you'll ever get turned down because of the degree -- it will almost assuredly be for another reason, and/or many reasons.

I'm very suspicious of anyone who says an MA is mandatory for advancement in this business -- it's decidedly not, at least not in editorial. If you're looking to move up in management, possibly so. But even then, I think attitude, experience, connections and skills trumps education, in many cases.

Not saying an MA isn't valuable in the real world. It is.

But the only thing that's mandatory is that you stand out. Yes, an MA is one way to stand out. But it's hardly the only way -- and it's hardly the cheapest way.

If an MA is the right path for you, by all means go for it. But there are other ways to stand out, ways that won't cost you loan payments for the next 20 years.

 

Thanks for the response, buck. I'm a little hesitant about the MA route for two reasons: 1) I'm not sure a Master's program could teach me a whole lot about this business that I don't already know, and 2) my wife and I are already up to our eyeballs in post-grad loans (for her, not me). If I thought shelling out that kind of money would have a tangible impact on my ability to ascend the corporate ladder, I'd seriously think about it. But right now it just doesn't seem like a good idea. I think I'd rather stick out my current job for another year or two, hit the 8-year mark and then take my chances with my resume, experience and clip file. Oh yeah, and my charming personality