Can experience make up for a degree?

COP, I think the points I would like to make are these: No, it's not impossible to get a sports writing gig without a degree. I think it's harder now than it was when I did more than a decade ago, but it's not impossible. Any open position is likely to have a slew of applicants and be ultra-competitive.

It's great you have passion for what you do. I think most of us on this board love the industry. Sports writing was the best job I've ever done, but I probably won't do it full-time again. But that's cool because at least I got to do it.

 

COP - Keep an open mind when you're looking for reporting jobs. Don't be afraid to go for a news-side job. It's been my experience that reporters with a sports background usually do well in news if it interests them. Sports folks do a good job of recognizing the story line (see the prep reporting thread), and if there are winners and losers in a given story (like at city council or school board meetings).

Plus, with your sports background, having news and sports experience on your resume could help you land something better down the road.

 

If you've got to leave school and you've got no choice, find a job and start your career. Anyone breaking in isn't going to be banking huge bucks in their first job in journalism, degree or not. But by all means, do whatever you can to finish. Look at taking courses elsewhere (any maybe cheaper) that can transfer to satisfy your degree requirements and write a letter to the dean explaining your situation and propose a plan to finish. You want that degree and ever year out of school that passes, the harder it is to get back around to so get it done as soon as you can. But trust me, nobody knows what will happen or what they'll want 10, 20, 30 years down the road and that degree is your insurance policy.

 

Get the degree. At 24 there is going to come a time when you can't pursue a writing job and are going to need cash. You need the degree. A lot of jobs now have filters that will make it impossible for you to get your resume looked at by a human. 3 classes? That's less than a semester. Get the degree, find some way to pay for it. 3 classes has to be about $3000 max. That's not a lot of money.

 

COP, many of us see dozens of your journalists interning that want to be writer. Our news staff is littered with them in the summer.

The thing you have to understand is your competition for writing jobs is fierce. There are no jobs out there, and if something opens up at a decent daily on a sports staff the applications will be through the roof. It isn't like most professions where there is new blood every couple of years. That writing job on a daily newspaper you think you are qualified for probably has applicants with 10 years of experience applying.

Your best asset is that you are young and cheap. That means that the paper can take advantage of you by working you 50 hour weeks without overtime just so you can get clips at a less than fair salary. Not exactly a great profession to get into. With $100,000 in student loans it would be criminal for me to recommend writing. You need to go into business or find a way to discharge that debt. You will never pay that back with a journalists salary. EVER.

My advice is to go to grad school and get a professional degree. Write on the side. I know you think your good, and maybe you are, but I know a ton of great writers who can't get a call back. So when you think your good, that isn't good enough. To get a job as an outsider you have to be Hemingway good.

Don't want to be a debbie downer, but no ones calling should be to be a writer. Seriously, that's so self-indulgent. The world will go on whether you write or not. The stories will be told. This is about making a living. At 33, I realized that much too late.

Let me tell you, it sucks when all your college friends start having huge homes and plenty of cash. That makes you feel terrible, especially when morons are out there making great money. And you can't complain about it, because on the outside, I have a job that "they would die for."

 

Yeah, I hear what you all are saying.

Let me just clarify however a couple of things.

First, I have said in the past, that I will write anything. My background isn't just sports. I was the editorial editor in college, and covered a Bible museum beat and got a lot of fascinating stories about priceless and ancient Biblical artifacts.

Second, it's not $100,000 in loans. That's what I've spent total. It was an estimation of my six years in college. The number was more for effect.

 

Apply for everything you seen, then.