Communications or Journalism grad school degrees: Worth it?

[bengal]

I've posted similar things before, but looking for input from people who've done it or thought about it.

Are the communications or j-school grad degrees worth it? I'd be going back to teach, not to continue in the biz. Has it worked for anyone? Financially is it worth it? I've been toying with everything from an MBA to law school, but nothing seems to catch my interest, so now I'm surfing this direction. Thanks.

[kydocking]

I'd say it depends on your age really. I am in my 30's and toyed with the idea of healthcare or law. I chose healthcare and feel I've made the right choice.

Personally I would not teach. The world has enough has-been's (sorry, but you would be regarded as one in the court of public opinion.)

Also are you in the mood to put up with coming of age kids who think they know it all? You'd have to deal with other issues like 20 something angst bulls**t, freshmen coming out of the closet on rocketsleds, and being forced to banquet on adolescent whining about how bad the world is.

[ October 31, 2007, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: kydocking ]

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by bengal:
I've posted similar things before, but looking for input from people who've done it or thought about it.

Are the communications or j-school grad degrees worth it? I'd be going back to teach, not to continue in the biz. Has it worked for anyone? Financially is it worth it? I've been toying with everything from an MBA to law school, but nothing seems to catch my interest, so now I'm surfing this direction. Thanks.I have friends who have done this, as well as go back for both JDs and MBAs.

Some things to consider:

-- Can you afford to live a year or two (or three for the JD) without an income?

-- Will you realistically be able to land a job you'll be happy with that will also enable you to pay off your now considerable school loan debt?

-- Teaching can be quite rewarding ... but rarely is it FINANCIALLY rewarding. Even full-time professors at major universities (in the humanities) are barely cracking into the 80K range. With no teaching experience and a newly-minted Journalism MA, the best you could expect in most places would be an adjunct position paying anywhere from $900-$2000 PER TERM.

Personally, after 20 years of solid industry experience, there's nothing for me to gain from going back to get a degree in a subject in which I have significantly more experience than the teachers!

If you're going to go through the time and expense of getting a graduate degree, in my opinion, the most flexible and marketable degree these days is the MBA.

[ October 31, 2007, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: TVMattNYC ]

[bengal]

Good points all.

Follow up: If you get an MBA, do you specialize in journalism? I'm a bit hazy on what I'd want to do with it, and honestly I haven't researched where the best places to go for it would be.

[Gail sirens]

Do you want to make some money when you're finished?
If you do, then teaching anything is not recommended.
An MBA would be the way to go.
Corporate America is looking for a few, or more, good women.

[Sir Dropham Pants]

I considered a grad school adventure a few years back. The cost isn't worth it to me in my current situation; maybe it will be later.
And to echo something Matt posted earlier re: teaching. I was trolling the employment page for a major university not long ago. They posted a teaching position for a broadcast journalism class. PhD required. Salary? $37,000. Nowhere did it mention any actual broadcast experience.

[Obewon]

Unless you have a PhD you will be at the bottom of the academic food chain. They don't care about experience. It is all about making the top 100 list in US News.

Even a Master's is meaningless in academia.

By bottom of the food chain I mean you are essentially an "un" person. You won't get tenure, you'll be on year to year contracts and the big kids will treat you like dirt. They literally look through you as though you aren't there.

Been there, done that. No mas

[Ranger Bob]

Generally I've found the more education a person has coming into the business, the more they had to "un-learn" and the more they had to compromise their ethics.

[CKMD]

Originally posted by Obewon:
Unless you have a PhD you will be at the bottom of the academic food chain. They don't care about experience. It is all about making the top 100 list in US News.

Even a Master's is meaningless in academia.

By bottom of the food chain I mean you are essentially an "un" person. You won't get tenure, you'll be on year to year contracts and the big kids will treat you like dirt. They literally look through you as though you aren't there.

Been there, done that. No masDamn...that sucks to hear that! I've been speaking to classes here on a regular basis with one professor who is encouraging me to return to school while I work, get my PhD and teach.

But, at my age, with my family situation and such, it would be difficult..now it sounds like it would end up being crap.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by CKMD:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Obewon:
Unless you have a PhD you will be at the bottom of the academic food chain. They don't care about experience. It is all about making the top 100 list in US News.

Even a Master's is meaningless in academia.

By bottom of the food chain I mean you are essentially an "un" person. You won't get tenure, you'll be on year to year contracts and the big kids will treat you like dirt. They literally look through you as though you aren't there.

Been there, done that. No masDamn...that sucks to hear that! I've been speaking to classes here on a regular basis with one professor who is encouraging me to return to school while I work, get my PhD and teach.

But, at my age, with my family situation and such, it would be difficult..now it sounds like it would end up being crap.</font>[/QUOTE]Hold on, CKMD. It may not be "crap" ... in fact you may find that you really love teaching.

But go into this with both eyes open. Working on a Ph.D. even FULL time takes at best five years. And unless you're getting a full scholarship, a doctorate from even a small university is going to cost you at least $50K. Will you be able to comfortably absorb that debt into your household budget even if you don't leave television?

That's another thing. A Ph.D. is no guarantee of any teaching job. And if you think hopscotching from market to market working up the TV ladder is hell, just wait until you do your NATION-WIDE *academic* job search. It's not your smarts, your talents, your experience, or even (least of all, in this case) your LOOKS that land you jobs in academia. It's 98% political, who-you-know BS. And unlike television, most of your successive moves aren't into bigger and better markets. In fact, it's quite difficult to move around in academia without starting at the bottom of the ladder all over again.

Good luck.

[CKMD]

Those are really the issues, Matt...affordability and ability (to move around).

Where I am at now, is one of the top schools in the country...it would be a dificult road to get into a program here. And family comes first; a job with insurance is a necessity.

It's sad, though. I applied for a Masters tht would've turned into a PhD program at a school in the San Francisco area when I was graduating from college. At the same time, I sent out tapes and resumes for reporter jobs and producer jobs. All came back at the same time.
I was accepted into a program that would end up with a PhD if I had pursued it (not journalism) that accepts 15 people a year. And I turned it down for a job as a producer in TV.
While I don't regret my decision, I do think about it occasionally.

Something in my head kept telling me, "those who can't, teach." What a lame saying.

[overthehill]

I chose to go back for a master's (in journ) 30 years after the bachelor's degree. Why? To see if I could do it. Personal reason, not professional. I felt a bit like the Wizard of Oz scarecrow. I needed someone to certify I had a brain--journalistically.

I sought advice from more than 50 friends, colleagues and family. It was about 50-50. Most told me the master's would NOT increase my credibility or authority as a college instructor...that my 30 years in TV news was more than the equivalent of a master's. Two told me to do it "for me." I followed their advice.

Will it get me more money? Probably not or not much. It will get me more prestige or satisfaction? Probably not. But it will be a personal accomplishment. That's what matters most.

I agree with an earlier poster that age matters. If I was 30 (oh how I wish I was), I would seek the MBA. It would make me so much more marketable in so many different ways, across various industries and disciplines. It would also increase my wealth potential and retirement.

If you want to be a news manager, retire to teach at a community college or go back to a university to teach, consider a master's in journ. If you want to be a station GM or network exec, seek the MBA.

By the way, "those who can't do, teach" is THE most lame saying I've ever heard. All of us, every ONE of us, had someone who inspired us to do what we're doing today. Most likely, it was a teacher. If you truly are as passionate about this business as you claim to be, why aren't you doing that for someone around you?

[ November 02, 2007, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: overthehill ]

[dinosaur]

I agree with overthehill. I went back to school to get my masters after spending 35 years in television news. I wanted to teach at the college level and a masters is the minimum requirement. I had no plans to get a PhD, I didn't care about tenure or research, I wanted to teach.

After looking at hundreds of resumes and tapes from new grads, and hiring dozens of them over the years, I (and most of my news director friends) were extremely disappointed with the vast majority of applicants. Since I knew what news directors were looking for, I wanted to help train new broadcast journalists so they were prepared to get a job and prosper.

I now teach broadcast journalism at a major state university. At this school most of the "skills" courses, writing, shooting, editing, producing, presentation and reporting, are taught by instructors with 10 to 40 years of real world experience. These are the ones the PhD's consider below their rank, they are time consuming and don't really add to their CV for tenure and promotion. No, I'm not at the top of the heap and I won't get tenure or professor status. And, no, I don't make the money I did in television. But it's satisfying work, I think I'm making a difference, and there are very few academic crises at 3:00 a.m.

[Spike]

Originally posted by overthehill:
If you want to be a news manager... consider a master's in journ. If you want to be a station GM or network exec, seek the MBA.Here is something I don't understand. I don't see how a masters degree in journalism would help someone looking to become a news director. It seems to me there are two components of being a news director: chief journalist of the department, and chief manager of the department. It seems to me that experience in the craft would be more valuable for the journalism component than any classroom experience or thesis composition.

So that leaves management. In my experience, news directors in general tend to be poor managers because, in general, they don't seem to have had very much formal management training. Those crap workshops some companies offer where a team of consultants sweeps in and fills everyone's head with buzzwords really don't count. Of course you have some news directors who are naturally gifted with management temperament, but more seem to be like the blind leading the blind.

So why would someone who aspires to be a news director be better served by a masters in journalism than an MBA, or even a simple MA in business? Wouldn't such a department manager benefit more from a basic grounding in accounting, finance, marketing and management practices?

[ November 02, 2007, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Spike ]

[Ranger Bob]

Originally posted by Spike:
[QUOTE] In my experience, news directors in general tend to be poor managers because, in general, they don't seem to have had very much formal management training. Those crap workshops some companies offer where a team of consultants sweeps in and fills everyone's head with buzzwords really don't count. Of course you have some news directors who are naturally gifted with management temperament, but more seem to be like the blind leading the blind....In my experience too! I worked for around 20 news directors in my career, and around 5 of them were good managers. The rest were clueless when it came to management skills. They had simply started as reporters and over the years, risen to their level of incompetence.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by Spike:
So why would someone who aspires to be a news director be better served by a masters in journalism than an MBA, or even a simple MA in business? That's what an MBA is. Master of BUSINESS Administration.

[Spike]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Spike:
So why would someone who aspires to be a news director be better served by a masters in journalism than an MBA, or even a simple MA in business? That's what an MBA is. Master of BUSINESS Administration.</font>[/QUOTE]Sorry, I meant to write MS in business. There are actually schools that offer a "Master of Science in Business" instead of/in addition to an MBA. I'm not sure why. Here's an example (http://www.gsib.vcu.edu/msBusiness.html).

I came across a few of those when researching MBA programs and was puzzled. They seem to be more like undergraduate business programs for people who already have degrees.

[ November 02, 2007, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: Spike ]

[Charlie Brown]

Originally posted by dinosaur:
At this school most of the "skills" courses, writing, shooting, editing, producing, presentation and reporting, are taught by instructors with 10 to 40 years of real world experience. These are the ones the PhD's consider below their rank, they are time consuming and don't really add to their CV for tenure and promotion. No, I'm not at the top of the heap and I won't get tenure or professor status. And, no, I don't make the money I did in television. See and THAT right there is the saddest indictment of all against the broadcast journalism master's degree. The classes that are the most important to your A. getting a job in the field and B. continued success in it are the ones that are most devalued by professors. However I've seen this played into by several instructors I had that had real world experience. Don't get me wrong - my major professor was one of the best teachers I've ever had and I wouldn't have stood a chance in this business without his words of wisdom...but the curriculum for some master's programs is heavier on academics than it probably should be, at least if your short-term goals are to secure a job in the broadcasting industry right out of college.

Too much time is spent learning history, theory and rhetoric and not enough emphasis is placed on the basic skills required to make it in this business. More time should be spent teaching these kids how to become skilled writers, editors and reporters, photographers, etc.

Today's aspiring journalists would benefit more from classes teaching them how to use natural sound to help their packages write themselves, proper shooting techniques, how to enterprise great stories. Hell when I finished my master's, I had no idea how to put together a resume tape or how to properly apply my own makeup before going on air...I was a non-linear editing whiz but that did me no good in my first two jobs.

I understand that a true master's degree needs to include some pure academia and that's all well and good...but if you're running a master's program in broadcast journalism and you're devaluing technical skills, you're doing them a terrible disservice.

[overthehill]

Hey Spike

I'd agree that a MBA or MS in Business is a good thing for a ND to have because much of what the ND does deals with budgeting, planning, HR, etc. BUT....and this is the biggest BUT....a ND has to be a solid, sound, ethical journalist FIRST and FOREMOST. I think most of us would agree that the leader of the newsroom had better have good news skills, right? How do you expect to take cues about daily coverage, sweeps strategies, making sound judgments from a business type MBA only person? (Oh, but that's the GM's role).

Yes, that ND needs more than a MS in journ to lead a newsroom. They need the years of experience more so. But we've clearly seen that NDs who have no management training, only years of journ experience usually fail to be good managers.

Even better than a MS in journ for NDs, why don't companies invest in some management training for their ND candidates? Oh, yeah, I know. Because THAT would cost money!

[ November 03, 2007, 07:09 AM: Message edited by: overthehill ]

[Spike]

Originally posted by overthehill:
I'd agree that a MBA or MS in Business is a good thing for a ND to have because much of what the ND does deals with budgeting, planning, HR, etc. BUT....and this is the biggest BUT....a ND has to be a solid, sound, ethical journalist FIRST and FOREMOST. I think most of us would agree that the leader of the newsroom had better have good news skills, right? How do you expect to take cues about daily coverage, sweeps strategies, making sound judgments from a business type MBA only person? (Oh, but that's the GM's role). My point is that someone considering becoming a news director should already have that journalism background from the years he has already spent in the craft. If he doesn't have that journalism experience already, I fail to see how a masters in journalism is going to help him. I have a hard time seeing anybody coming out of school with a masters in journalism being ready to manage a newsroom.

What these people don't usually have is management training or a basic grounding in good business practices. Most of them learn their management skills from watching their own news directors, who tend to be bad managers also.

So why go back to school for something you already know and not for the half the job you don't? I have heard many people say to get an MA in journalism if you want to go into management, but I fail to see why. On the other hand, a seasoned journalist pursuing an MBA wouldn't be an "MBA only person." He would be applying that MBA knowledge to his own craft, which he should already know.

Originally posted by overthehill:
Even better than a MS in journ for NDs, why don't companies invest in some management training for their ND candidates?Some do, but that training has a lot of problems. It's usually too short. A company really can't afford to send off their managers for years of education. So instead they send them off for two week seminars or bring some group in for a couple of weeks to do in-house training. This is consultant-driven crap. The managers come out of the training with their heads filled with consultant buzzwords and very little useful knowledge.

At my last job I had a supervisor who had gone through this kind of thing. When she got back, she immediately called a meeting with everybody in her group. She had her notes in front of her, and she went through what seemed like a prepared program in which we each had to suggest a "mission statement" for our group, then declare a mission statement for ourselves individually. She had no idea what a mission statement was really supposed to accomplish, but that was the major buzzword they taught her. She thought that if we all had our own mission statements, she had succeeded as a manager.

Meanwhile she learned NOTHING about budgeting of money and resources, NOTHING about motivating employees and NOTHING about marketing. These consultants know they aren't really teaching anything useful. They know they can't teach anything useful in a week or two. So instead they invent some "system" full of buzzwords and teach that to their attendees.

The alternative for these companies would be to send their managers to real business schools. I just don't see that as possible. Not only does it cost too much, but it takes too much time.

But if you're the individual looking for the management position, and you're already willing to put in the time to get a graduate degree to make you appear qualified for the job and differentiate yourself from all the other candidates, it seems to me that you would be better served by the study of the part of the job you don't know rather than additional study of the part of the job you do. Just because the companies won't pay to make you qualified as a manager doesn't mean you can't accomplish that yourself.

[Oh Snap]

I left my job to go back to school and couldn't be happier with my decision. I, too, decided to do it for very personal reasons.

I'm not sure if I'll ever teach, but not because it doesn't seem satisfying. All of my professors have had incredible real-world experiences, and all but one seem thrilled to be doing what they're doing now. Their attitudes are a nice break from the newsroom world.

I think it helps that I was very selective about the school and program I entered. I made sure it'd be worth the time and money, that it wouldn't be too repetitive, and that I wouldn't have to write a thesis at the end.

I also make sure I don't take any classes I don't think I need. I'm a reasonable person. If I figure I can do without "History of the News," I find a suitable replacement and explain to my department head why I should be allowed to switch.

Anyhoo, the point is, school can be what you make of it -- I'm sure just like most situations -- and after years of going back and forth about it, I'm totally glad I made the decision to return. But that's just me.

[bengal]

Curious Snap: What do you want to do with your j-school grad degree?

[Rosenblum]

The BBC actually puts their senior managers through MBA programs at the BBCs expense.

[Oh Snap]

Bengal,
I would like to eventually be a manager in a newsroom or at a production company. Then, maybe teach one day. I've also met some people through school who are trying some interesting things out on the internet (usually at newspapers that are starting shows or clips online), so that might be an option, too.

Some people who have done my program before have gone on to become field producers, reporters, segment producers, filmmakers,film festival producers, and print journalists.

Some alum I've spoken with had some complaints with the program, so I guess it's not for everyone. But like I said before, I'm completely satisfied with my decision to take the leap.

[overthehill]

Spike

We don't disagree at all. Most NDs are vastly unprepared for the challenges of management. Most come out of journalism backgrounds or are just annointed NDs after years of experience. Their ability to handle difficult management situations will test them more than any story they've ever covered or any news program they've ever produced.

All I'm saying is, IF you think you want to become a news director, managing editor, etc., a master's in journalism, while young, is beneficial to keep your bearings straight. Obviously all those years of experience in a newsroom are MORE valuable, but the master's certainly keeps you grounded in the fundamentals of ethical journalism.